Out Of Body Experience
by Lolly4Holly
Summary: Do you believe in out of body experiences? After discovering that his grandfather's mysterious device really works, Ethan Stokes turns the lives of his family and their friends inside out. How will his father ever get him out of this one? SLASH Nick/Greg pairing. GSR Gil/Sara. COMPLETE.
1. Prologue

**Out of Body Experience**

**AUTHOR:** Lolly4Holly

**RATED:** M

**PAIRINGS:** Nick and Greg slash

**SUMMARY:** Do you believe in out of body experiences? After discovering that his grandfather's mysterious device really works, Ethan Stokes turns the lives of his family and their friends inside out. How will his father ever get him out of this one?

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own CSI or any of its characters.

**WARNINGS:** Adult content. **M/M** slash relationship. **Gender Swap** and **AR** (_Age Regression_) elements. **Don't like, don't read.**

After my story '**Altered Fate'** went down pretty well with my regular readers and some new ones too, I decided to continue with the gender swap and age regression theme. Please let me know what you think, I appreciate all your reviews.

**Enjoy!**

* * *

**Prologue:**

"What are you still doing in here?" Timmy Forester folded his arms across his chest, glaring at the last little boy left in the changing room after gym. "You know there's a fee for being the last in the locker room." He took a few steps closer towards the smaller boy, making a tremble shudder down his spine. "Pay up if you wonna leave with your stuff." He quickly swiped his bag off him.

"That's mine!" The boy finally spoke up, regretting shouting at him as soon as the words escaped his lips.

"I can tell, it's for a baby." Timmy laughed, spinning the Spiderman bag in his hand. "Do your Mommy and Daddy still dress you and make you wear diapers?" He searched through the pockets for some cash, laughing as the younger boy tried to snatch it away from him, only to end up crashing to elbows and knees on the floor. "You're such a loser." He emptied the contents of the bag across the floor, before he dropped it to the floor. "You can pay me tomorrow. Don't forget or I'll have to tell everyone about your little diaper problem."

"I don't wear diapers!"

"Yeah, whatever baby." Timmy snorted with laughter, pulling his own bag on over his shoulder on his route to the door.

The smaller boy waited on the floor for Timmy to leave, before he stuffed his things back into his backpack. A part of him wished that he was brave enough to stick up to his bully, so he could point out the fact that this bag wasn't even his. His mother couldn't afford a new bag, so he was using one of his cousin's old bags.

It had a few holes in it and the colour was starting to fade, but it held his books in it fine, so he didn't see any reason to through it out.

Ethan only wished he was as cool as his older cousin was now. Logan Stokes never seemed to have any trouble with bullies in school, if anything; he was more of a bully himself. He was seventeen now, already driving around his first car and he had not one but two girlfriends on the side.

Ethan was only nine years old and could barely talk to his own mother, let alone another girl.

Since it was now the end of the school day, and all his bullies had either taken the bus or ridden their bikes home, Ethan decided to finally escape the school building and try and find either his mother's or his grandmother's car.

He knew now that there was no point in looking for his father's car, as he was always sleeping during the day and working whenever he really needed him.

"Ethan!" His mother frantically waved her hand out the car window at him to get his attention, before she returned her attention to the phone conversation she was having in her car. His mother, Penelope Harding used to work as a full time lawyer. She was well on her way to becoming a partner in the firm, but that was nine years ago, before Ethan was born. She took a couple of years off to become a full time mother, but her relationship with his father didn't exactly work out, so she had to return to work.

Before the divorce finalised less than two years ago though, Penny and Ethan's father decided to have one last night together, creating his baby sister, Avery. His mother was now struggling to keep up her job full time, while taking care of her two children during the day, as their father worked nights so he couldn't take them during the day.

It was all so complicated, making Ethan wish that he could have been born into another family.

No one else at school seemed to have these problems with their parents, and if they did, they sure hid it well.

Ethan climbed into the back of his mother's car, buckling himself in beside his sleeping baby sister. He had always wanted a little brother or sister to play with, but this one just slept all the time. When she wasn't crying and dirtying her diapers that was.

Without asking her son how his day went, his mother started up the car again, driving her children back home. She had the phone pressed against her ear the whole time, keeping her eye on the time as she had a deadline to meet.

Ethan wished all the time that his parents didn't have to work so much, but when he told them that, they always told him that they needed money to feed him and keep him in clothes that fit him. His Grandmother and Granddad had always been pretty well off, but his mother refused to take any kind of hand out from them.

He didn't know why grownups always made things so complicated for themselves.

As soon as they got home, Penny balanced her sleeping one year old in one arm, with the groceries in the other, still managing to hold the phone against her ear to continue her conversation with her boss, Liz.

"Mom..." Ethan followed her through to the kitchen, trying to get her attention, "Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom. Mom."

Penny gave her son a hiss, moving her phone to the other ear as she set the groceries onto the table. "Yes, I promise to get that report to you first thing in the morning. I'm not due in court for the case until the end of the week, so we've got some time to..."

"Mom." He stamped his foot on the floor, giving her a glare as she refused to look round at him. "Mom!"

"Shh, Ethan. I'm on the phone. Yep, I'm still here... yes, alright..." Penny nodded into her phone, carefully lowering the sleeping one year old into the travel cot. "Yep, first thing. Thanks a lot, Liz... bye." She snapped her phone shut, giving out a sigh as she turned to face her son. "What Ethan? What could you possibly want so urgently when I'm on the phone?"

"I wonna call Daddy." He stropily slumped onto one of the chairs around the table. "You said I could this morning, but you never let me. I have to talk to him. He leaves for work soon." He pointed out the time on his watch.

"Oh... that's right," She realised the time on the clock, reopening her phone so she could call him for him. "You know, if you'd bother to pay attention to the time on that watch when you're at school, you could get out of school a lot quicker and save us all some time." She teased her son, pressing a kiss to his forehead as she handed him the phone. "Remind him he's taking you this weekend."

Ethan rolled his eyes at her, knowing his father would be able to remember that on his own. He hadn't missed a weekend so far, so there was no reason to remind him. "Daddy." He slid off his chair, making his way into the hall to talk to him in private away from his mother. "Yeah... I just got home from school." He hurried up the stairs with the phone, catching his mother leant against the doorframe to listen in.

Penny gave out a sigh, returning to the kitchen to unpack her groceries. Sometimes she really missed being married to his father. At least then there was someone else to come home to that wasn't constantly begging for her attention. She hadn't found time to date like him since their divorce finalised, as her life constantly revolved around work and her children.

She knew it was her own fault though; she was the one who decided to call it off. Seven years of marriage was too much for her, she couldn't go on knowing full well that her partner didn't have the same feelings for her that she did for him.

"Mom!" Ethan shouted down the stairs, having finished talking to his father on the phone. "When's dinner?"

"Um..." Penny looked round at the time, realising she hadn't planned ahead for their dinner again. She planned on eating the left over Chinese herself, while she caught up on her case notes in front of her computer. "I'll get back to you on that. Get started on your homework!"

"Don't have any." He responded, pushing his bedroom door shut so he didn't have to talk to her anymore.

"Why did I ever become a mother?" She asked herself, folding away the last brown paper bag. She stored it away under the sink with the others, hearing Avery giving out her usual cry from the next room as she woke up from her nap, finding herself alone in the front room. "I didn't mean it." She glared up at her ceiling, making her way through to the other room. "Mama's coming baby."

* * *

"I can't." Nick pointed out to the older man, currently in charge of night shifts while their own supervisor was away. No one really believed that Grissom would come back this time, but Ecklie wasn't making the same mistake twice by leaving Catherine in charge of the lab. He decided to take over himself for a while, which the team really weren't enjoying. "I've got my kids this weekend. Every other week," He reminded the man. "I didn't have them last week, so I got em this week."

"Kids? I thought you only had the one."

"I've got two. My youngest just turned one." Nick folded his arms across his chest, hoping the man would cut him a slack, just this once. "You'll have to find somebody else. I've never missed a weekend so far."

"We all have to deliver disappointing news now and then," Ecklie re-handed him the new schedule, with a sinister grin across his lips. "You'll just have to let your kids in on the hard facts of life. Work comes first."

"But..." Nick held the new schedule, sighing heavily as Ecklie just walked away from him without a care in the world. He swore at the man under his breath, making his way towards the break room to collect his assignment from the new acting assistant supervisor, Bryan Hammond, much to Catherine's dislike, even though she couldn't stop staring at his tightly fitted jeans. "This is total BS. I can't believe Ecklie's switchin' me to full time on weekends. You get the new schedule?" He took a seat beside Greg at the break room table.

"What's wrong Nicky, worried you're gonna become the world's worst father over a weekend?" Catherine chuckled, taking a seat opposite the boys at the table, so she had a good view of the back of Bryan while he was pouring himself a coffee.

"I've never missed a weekend so far." Nick continued to complain, beginning to crumple the new schedule in his hands. "This is BS. Why'd Grissom have to leave us like this?"

"Because he wanted to teach. Anyone fancy a curry after work?" Sara reminded him, joining them at the table, wanting to satisfy her latest craving for something spicy. These pregnancy cravings were really starting to get on her nerves. "I'm buying." She looked round the table, catching a faint nod from the three of them. "Can't you just take the kids next weekend?" She suggested, wondering what the big deal was.

"Too late, he already promised them." Catherine filled her in on the details, looking up as Bryan looked their way. "You got our assignments yet, Bryan?"

"Oh," The young man looked back at the files he had brought in with him, biting his lower lip as he'd forgotten them again. "They're... eh... they're in my office. I'll be right back." He hurried out of the room with his hot coffee, bumping into someone in the hall, spilling the hot coffee down the sleeve of his clean white shirt.

"So much for experienced." Greg muttered, climbing to his feet to switch the coffee over to his secret stash. "Anyone else want...?" He glanced over his shoulder, catching a faint nod from what was left of their team.

Rubbing her pregnant sides, Sara asked them, "Tell me again why we have to put up with that... kid?"

"Because Ecklie doesn't think I'm up to the challenge of leading the team I've been practically leading since the beginning," Catherine pointed out to her, opening her purse to check her make up in her compact mirror she always kept handy. "Nice arse though. You think he'd go for a... slightly older woman like me?"

Nick laughed, shaking his head at her, "He's younger than Greg, and married. Check the finger." He pointed to the door as Bryan returned, shaking off the coffee stained assignment slips. "Thanks." He took the first slip from the kid's hands. "Double homicide at the Tangiers." He immediately sighed.

"Ah... you can't pick a new one." Catherine stopped him from putting it back in the pile, grabbing the best one for herself. "Three slips, you pairing us up?" She queried, batting her eyelids as she looked Bryan in the eye.

"Sara and Greg." Bryan slipped past the older woman, handing the last assignment slip over to Sara at the table. "Supervisor, Conrad Ecklie wants the high profile case." He decided to point out to Catherine, knowing she was hoping that he was available. "Nick," He looked over his shoulder. "I'm with you."

"I'm drivin'!" The older man immediately declared, grabbing his coffee off Greg. "Getcha kit, I'll meet you at my truck in five." He warned Bryan.

"Nicky..." Catherine hurried after him into the hall, wanting to trade slips.

"Ah... no backsies." The Texan grinned widely at her, holding the slip out of her reach. "Besides, you don't want to seem too eager. Junior's already noticed that you have a thing for him. You better be careful, he might put a restrainin' order out on you before the week is over." He walked backwards towards the locker room, chuckling softly to himself.

"Nicky c'mon, be reasonable." She followed him in.

"I don't know why you're goin' so gooey eyed over him; he's not even that good lookin'."

"Like you'd know, you don't look at straight guys the way I do."

"I look at _guys_, gay or straight, it doesn't really matter. I know I'll never date em." Nick fiddled with the lock of his locker, taking his vest and kit out. "He's too young for me anyway. I'm nearly forty."

Catherine immediately laughed, turning for her own locker, "You're only thirty eight, when you get to my age you can start to have that little crisis. And don't ask, because I'm not telling you." She warned him, pulling her own jacket on. "Since you brought up the subject, did you really have a one night stand with someone from the lab once?" She stopped him from leaving so soon.

"Who'd you hear that from?" He turned away from the door.

"Water cooler gossip," She shrugged, tying her hair back into a ponytail. "Is it true though?"

Nick simply responded with a smile, quickly slipping away before she asked him who it was. He wasn't looking forward to working with Bryan again, especially the car ride over as they had nothing in common, leaving the car in complete silence.

At least he'd have some time to think up an excuse to tell his son for this weekend though.

* * *

"Oh Nicky, you can't do this to him now," Penny hissed down the phone at him, gently patting the one year olds back in her arms in an attempt to settle her down. "What the hell am I supposed to tell him? You only _just_ promised him two hours ago that you were going to take him out this weekend. He could really use the distraction too; he hasn't been himself since my parents split up."

"_Course not, it reminded him of us."_ Nick finally got a word in, lifting another box into the back of his truck. "_I'm sorry, it's last minute. They changed the schedule on me, there's nothin' I can do about it. Summer holidays are comin' up soon though, right? I can make it up to him then."_

"And your daughter." The woman reminded him of his second child, as she adjusted the baby in her arms to a more comfortable position. "I could really use a break from her every once in a while, Nick. I'm with her every day; you only get her every other weekend. You have no idea how exhausting it is to be with a one year old on your own all the time. And it was your stupid idea to sleep with me again, so you're completely responsible for this second life that I have to take care of."

"_Your mother takes her off your hands half the time."_ Nick lifted a second box into the back, giving his partner, Bryan a glare as he continued to dust something completely irrelevant to the case for prints. "_And I said I'd take her whenever you need a break, you just have to ask."_

"How's tomorrow?" She didn't waste any time, just as her baby started to cry again. "A couple of hours would be fine. Please?"

"_Alright,"_ He sighed softly, moving the phone to his other ear. "_I finish at eight. I can take her for a couple of hours in the mornin', but I need my sleep."_

Penny immediately laughed, bouncing her baby on her knee. "You won't get much of that. I'll drop her round after I've got Ethan off to school."

"_I mean it Penny; I can't take her for long."_ He warned her. "_Now can I get on with some work?"_

"Yep, thanks for nothing." She snapped her phone shut in her hand, turning her attention back to her baby. "You better be this moody for your Daddy tomorrow. I want him to know exactly how you treat me." Climbing to her feet, Penny made her way towards the stairs, spotting her son sat on the stairs, clutching the banister bars beside him tightly in his hands. "Oh, sweetheart," She saw the look on his face. "I take it you heard all of that?" She knew he had a habit of listening in on her phone conversations, especially when the person on the other end was his father.

"Yep." Ethan lifted the box from his side, holding it on his lap. Penny recognised it as the box his Grandfather had given him last thanksgiving, but she had never seen inside it. "He'll take Avery but not me?" He asked her, distracting his mother from her thoughts.

"You have school tomorrow, sweetheart." She reminded him of the daily torture, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "You'll get to see him another day though. He's promised that he'll take you for the summer."

Ethan gave her a nod, watching her carrying his baby sister up the stairs, through to her room. He clutched the box his Grandfather had given him tighter, wondering if what was inside really worked the way his Grandfather had said it did.

Becoming someone else sounded a bit surreal, but it would be the perfect plan to spend some time with his father, rather than spending the whole day at school.

"Bed time in five minutes." His mother called back to him, changing his baby sister into a clean diaper and her pyjamas. His sister's vulnerability was almost enough to make him want to change his mind, but if this was the only way he'd get to spend some time with his father, then he'd have to go through with it and hope it wasn't too humiliating.

After all, it couldn't be so bad to spend the day as a drooling one year old. It certainly sounded better than being beaten up in the playground by Timmy and his friends.

Anything was better then that.

* * *

**Please let me know what you thought!**

**Have a great weekend :D**

**~ Holly**


	2. Chapter 1: Hidden Secrets

**Chapter One: Hidden Secrets**

As soon as the sun started to rise, Ethan shot out of bed, eager to get ready for school. He wasn't really excited about the school day that lay ahead of him, more excited to actually spend some time with his father, whether he was a baby or not.

For the first time, he was up before his baby sister, pouring himself some cereals at the table as his mother trudged down the stairs in her night gown. She always looked like death in the mornings. Her long brown hair was all over the place, looking as though a bird had tried to make a nest in it while she was sleeping. Without her makeup on, she looked a lot older then she really was too, especially from the dark circles around both of her eyes.

She made her way straight for her coffee machine that had already began to brew, gasping in surprise as she saw her son sat at the table. She thought she was seeing things as she hadn't yet had her morning coffee, but he was definitely there.

"What are you doing up so early?" She cocked an eyebrow in her son's direction, bringing her coffee mug to her lips. "Are you feeling okay?" She placed her hand on his forehead. "You do feel a little warm; maybe I should get you an appointment with your doctor."

"Get off me, Mom." He ducked away from her. "There's nothing wrong with me."

"I'm sorry, I'm just a little worried about you. You haven't been up this early since you were your sister's age." She poured some milk into his cereals for him, before she pressed a kiss to the top of his head. "Don't forget to brush your teeth. We might actually be able to get to the school gate on time today." She chuckled, making her way back to the stairs, immediately hearing her baby crying. "Ooh... Mama's coming, Avery."

Ethan quickly finished his cereals, dumping his bowl in the sink, before he hurried up the stairs to get dressed. He double checked that he had everything in his back pack, especially his Grandfather's box. He couldn't go to school without that, or the day wouldn't be worth going through at all.

Once his mother and baby sister were finally ready, they drove off in the direction of Ethan's school. The traffic was much lighter this early in the morning, but there were quite a few cars in the parking lot of the school.

"Alright, I'll pick you up at half three." His mother pulled up at the usual drop off zone that was practically empty. She pressed a kiss to her son's cheek, forcing him to hug her, before she let him out the car. "I love you. Pay attention in class and don't forget to write down everything you need to know for your homework assignments."

"I know, Mom." He groaned, pulling his bag on over his shoulder. He pushed the door shut, giving his mother a wave and his baby sister a wide smile. He wasn't quite sure about what would happen to her once the changes took place, but he was sure she would be fine. She was still just a baby so she wouldn't know what was going on, making him feel a lot less guilty about the situation.

He thought he'd wait a while before he used his Grandfather's device, not wanting to waste time by sitting in a car with his mother. After all, the whole point was to spend time with his father, not the woman he saw every day.

So his bullies wouldn't find him before school begun, Ethan waited round the back of the school for the first bell to ring, clutching his Grandfather's box tightly between his hands. He tried to remember a few of the rules his Grandfather had told him about the device, but they were hard to remember.

The only two he could remember was the fact that the device only worked for five hours at a time for the user, and it couldn't be used again on the same person during that time period.

Something like that anyway, his Granddad said it had something to do with a failsafe, whatever that meant.

He thought that they were pretty stupid rules, but it would give him just enough time with his father and if his sister was transferred into his body, she wouldn't be able to use it to change herself back.

After registration was over, Ethan made his way towards his first lesson. A few minutes into the lesson, he got a hall pass to the bathroom, deciding to be alone for the change, so no one would see what happened to him. He held the odd looking device in both hands, trying to remember what his Grandfather had said.

It had various dials, joysticks and buttons all over it, confusing him even more.

He realised that he should have practiced with it last night first, but the lights soon started blinking and the dial on the top spun round a few times. Ethan fiddled with one of the thumb sticks, watching the dial turning backwards. He didn't know why it stopped on the number five or what it did, but it certainly didn't change him.

Giving out a groan, he fiddled with one of the other dials, finally getting it to do something else. He remembered that his Grandfather said that it worked on some kind of psychic power in the user's head, so he didn't have to say anything out loud in order for it to switch him with the other person.

He started to feel a strange tingle running through his whole body, followed by a slight blurriness in his eyes. He assumed that it must be working, as he had never felt like this before. The cold tingles continued to travel throughout his body, travelling in the direction of his brain.

When he could finally see out of his eyes again, he wasn't in the toilets at the school. He felt a warm liquid trickling down the back of his throat, as well as an arm beneath his much smaller body, holding him close against something else that was really warm. He couldn't quite see what he was up against though, as the room was much darker than the one he was in before.

He was finally lifted to an upright position, being patted on the back by a large hand. His nostrils were immediately filled with the strong familiar scent of his mother, making him widen his eyes as he realised what he had just been drinking. He knew that babies drank breast milk, but his mother always fed his baby sister in private.

He felt as though he was going to be sick, even if it did taste good and make him feel warm inside, he was nine years old.

Not a baby.

"I've pumped enough to last you the day." Penny buttoned herself back into her blouse, climbing to her feet with her confused little baby in her arms. "She still takes it with each meal. I should be back to collect her at about four though. Don't forget her afternoon nap, or she won't sleep through the night." She handed the baby over to another set of arms, so she could wipe away the stain of baby vomit from her shoulder.

"I do know how to look after my own baby." Nick adjusted the little girl against his side, handing his ex a wet wash cloth to help her out. "I thought you said you were givin' up the breast feedin' anyway?"

"I was, but I changed my mind." Penny climbed to her feet, placing the diaper bag on the chair behind her. "I breast fed Ethan up until he was ten months old, because I had more time on my hands during the day. Avery's only just turned one, and it's the only time I get to spend with her now." She gave her daughter a playful tickle to the stomach, wondering why the baby had such a grumpy scowl on her face. "Maybe if I wasn't working so much, I could actually spend some proper time with her."

"It wasn't my choice to leave." The man reminded her, patting his baby girl on the back as she started to gurgle softly. Ethan gave his parents a curious look, wondering what his father meant by that. He had always thought that it was his father who decided to up and leave them for no reason. "Don't act like the victim either; everyone's offered to help you out. Your parents have offered to help you out with money, so have I, but you're too proud to accept anythin' from anyone."

"I'm not too proud; I just want to do it on my own. Is that so wrong?" She collected up her purse, pressing a kiss to the top of her baby's head. "I'll see you later. Take care of my baby, Nicky."

"She's mine too." Nick led her to the door, securely holding Avery with his hand on her back as she started to wriggle in his arms. "I never wanted to leave." He called after her. "That was your choice, not mine."

"I don't blame you." Penny took a few steps back towards him. "I never said that I did. This... it's for the best. We don't work well together. It's better now that we're separated."

"Better for who?" Nick asked her, not really getting an answer as she turned to walk away from him. "Did you want me to pick Ethan up from school?"

"I got it." Penny smiled at the man, giving her baby another wave. "Have fun with your Daddy, Avery."

Nick stayed in the doorway to watch his ex driving away, before he pushed the door shut. Ethan smiled as the plan actually worked; he was finally going to get to spend some time with his father. Even if the man wasn't aware of it, it was totally worth it.

His father pressed a kiss to the top of his head, setting him down in a play pen in the front room though.

The boy immediately struggled onto his hands and knees with his weak little limbs, crawling towards the edge of the play pen that was surrounded by thick wooden bars. He watched his father disappearing down the hall into his room, hoping he was coming back, as the toys he was surrounded with didn't look very fun. There was a doll in the corner, a few stackable blocks and a musical keyboard that made different animal noises when the keys were struck.

His mother, Penny hated the noises that came out of it, so she gave it to Nick to let it annoy him for a while.

Ethan struggled to pull himself up against the wooden bars, but his baby sister had only just mastered crawling. Every time he tried, his little chubby legs gave out, sending him toppling back down to his padded diapered bottom. He could tell it was the diaper breaking his fall, as it crinkled with every moment, taking up a lot of space beneath his clothes.

He looked at the chubby little digits on his hand, wiggling them about in amazement. He couldn't believe that this had actually worked out.

He really was a baby again.

Nick returned a few minutes later, wearing a clean shirt that he was tucking into his dark blue jeans. Instead of making his way over to his daughter, he made his way into the kitchen to finish the rest of his coffee. So far Ethan's plan to spend more time with his father wasn't working out so good, but it was still better than school.

His father finally made his way back over to him, sliding his hands beneath the baby's arms to lift her free from the crib. It appeared that they were going out somewhere, making Ethan suddenly worry that someone might see him. He didn't want anyone other than his parents to see him like this, they'd make fun of him.

"C'mon, Princess," Nick strapped his daughter into her travel seat, smiling as she kept her curious big brown eyes locked on his. Ethan was trying to tell if his father could tell the difference between his children, but he seemed to be treating him just like Avery. He carried him out to his truck, strapping the travel seat into the back seat of the car, facing the opposite way from the front.

Avery never seemed to mind sitting in a car backwards, but Ethan had always imagined that it might be a bit sickly.

The drive there didn't seem to take very long, but Ethan started to feel as though he was about to fall asleep. He felt a bit sea sick as the seat was lifted out of the car, carried towards a large shopping centre then placed into a trolley. Of course this was where they were going; his father had always been so predictable.

Food shopping every Wednesday.

Ethan felt uncomfortable in the tilted travel seat, but there wasn't really anything that he could do about it. His father couldn't understand a word he was saying though, concentrating on trying to find everything on the list in his hand, rather than what his baby girl was trying to sound out.

As they continued to walk round the store, Ethan started to feel more and more sleepily, barely able to keep his eyes open anymore. He hadn't even done anything, so he didn't know why he was so tired. He managed to keep his eyes open as they reached the checkout, finally getting some attention from his father too.

Nick playfully tickled his baby girl, smiling at her as she gave out an adorable shriek. While all his attention was focused on her, he failed to notice that some of the women in the store had taken an interest in him, secretly wishing he was the father of their own adorable baby's.

Ethan saw though, he had always thought that Nick had cheated on his mother. He was always getting attention from the opposite sex, but he never seemed very interested back.

Once his groceries were paid for, Nick wheeled the trolley in the direction of his truck in the parking lot, leaving Avery in the front so he could load the shopping into the back. "I thought that was you." A woman's voice called over to him, joining him round the back of his truck. "Got the kids today instead then?" She adjusted her vibrant red blouse, showing off more off her bust.

Ethan watched the action, feeling his stomach immediately rumbling. He felt embarrassed from the reaction that wasn't even his fault, realising that he only saw a female chest as a source of food now.

"Just the one." His father smiled round at his Aunt Catherine, closing up the boot once the last grocery bag was in. "You sure you're not stalkin' me since I avoided you yesterday?"

"No." She grinned back, shielding her eyes from the sun. "Although, now that you mention it," She twirled her keys around in her other hand, taking a few steps closer towards him. "Who exactly _are_ you sleeping with from the lab?"

Ethan perked his ears up, immediately casting his eyes towards his father stood in front of him.

"None yah business." He lifted the travel seat from the trolley, making his way round to the back of the car to buckle her in. "And I'm not goin' to tell you, so there's no point in askin' me again." He warned her, catching her reflection in the window.

"Are you embarrassed to be seeing them or something?" She lowered her arms to her sides, making Ethan's stomach loudly grumble again from the sight of her chest.

"I'm not embarrassed." Nick double checked the seat belt around the baby seat, before he pushed the door shut behind him. "I just don't want to tell you. You're not exactly known for keepin' secrets." He pointed out to her, pulling his own door open. "If I tell you, it could destroy both our careers."

"So it is a he then?"

Nick answered the woman with a glare, as he climbed into the front seat of his truck. "Bye, Catherine. I'll see you at the lab tonight."

"Bye." She sighed in disappointment, waving the younger man off. She was desperate to know who he was seeing, not only because it would be the juiciest piece of gossip since Sara and Grissom started seeing each other, but because she wanted to Nick to be happy. It had been a while since she had seen a real smile on the Texan's lips, and she was really starting to miss the old cheerful Nick that pretty much had a positive outlook on just about anything.

* * *

On the drive home, Ethan couldn't stay awake any longer. He kept trying to shake himself awake, but he was too tired to keep it up. His eyes forced themselves closed, sending him straight off to sleep for the next two and a half hours. When he woke up, it took him a moment to remember that he had changed himself into a baby. He was actually glad that he woke up here and not at school, as he would have been in big trouble.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he struggled to roll over, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees so he could see where exactly he was. When they returned home from the store, Nick had put his sleeping child in the play pen, while he put his groceries away. He was now sat on the sofa across the room, barely able to keep his eyes open as he flipped through one of his national geographic magazines, focused on birds.

Ethan didn't know why his father found birds so fascinating, they looked pretty boring and they weren't exactly cute like a puppy or a kitten.

When Nick saw that Avery was awake, he set the magazine down; making his way over to her before she started to cry. Lifting her free from the play pen, he pressed multiple kisses to her soft little cheek, making her giggle softly in his arms. "I don't know why your Mommy complains so much, you're adorable." As he held her against his side, he peered down the back of the pink track suit bottoms she was wearing to check her diaper.

Ethan widened his eyes, completely forgetting about that. The diaper between his legs did feel heavier, indicating that he had actually wet himself. He felt cold and uncomfortable, embarrassed even. He hadn't wet himself since he was six, and that was under extreme circumstances.

His father carried him through to the Avery's bedroom, where a change table was set up against the wall. He set the baby down on the plastic change mat, carefully removing her sneakers, followed by the track suit bottoms. He knelt down to go through the cupboards beneath the change table, leaving the baby staring up at the ceiling above her.

Ethan decided to lift his legs though, realising he hadn't actually seen them yet. They were really short and chubby, making him look fat, but he had seen his sister in her diaper and she didn't look fat. He figured it must have just been because his own legs were long and skinny, but now they were short and chubby.

Nick stood up straight again, setting the things he needed beside his little girl, so he had his hands free to pull away the tabs from the messy diaper. He was relieved to see that it wasn't a really messy one, making it a quick and easy change for once.

While his father was changing him, Ethan continued to look at himself, realising just how chubby babies really were. His arms were like thick stumps, with small little hands and sausage like fingers. His sister did have very long fingers for a baby, but from this angle, they looked very short and fat. His stomach was the worst; it stuck out more than anything else. It was amazing that he was even still hungry with a stomach that big, but he felt as though he hadn't eaten anything all day.

Nick lifted the baby from the change table once she was in a clean diaper, carrying her back through the house towards the kitchen. Ethan was relieved that he was finally going to get something to eat, but as his father reached for one of the bottles of pumped breast milk from the fridge door, he felt as though he was going to be sick... again.

He wanted some real food, not his mother's breast milk, no matter how good it tasted.

He immediately started crying, unable to keep himself from expressing himself the only way a baby knew how to. He tried to stop as his father noticed him, but his cries turned into uncontrollable wails, screaming out against this horrible world that he was stuck in for the next three hours.

* * *

While Ethan was being comforted in the safety of his father's embrace, Miss Tanner, the Vice Principal from Ethan's school was just starting her rounds of the school. She liked to patrol the corridors while lessons were in session, just to make sure that both the students and teachers were where they were supposed to be. She stopped by the boys toilets as she heard a wailing sound, concerned that someone inside might be in pain.

Entering the room, she peered under each of the stall doors, spotting a pair of bare feet under the door, indicating that there was someone in there. "Hello... are you alright?" She stood outside the door, clutching her files against her chest. She had dealt with a few tantrums from the younger children over the years, along with a few tears, but she had never heard anything like this before. "Hello," She knocked on the door this time, making herself heard. "Are you alright in there?"

The woman took a step back as she heard the child continuing to cry, wondering what she was going to do. She set the files from her hands onto the edge of the sink, before she stepped into the next stall. She closed the lid of the toilet, carefully climbing up onto it in her heels, so she could peer over the door to see who was inside.

"Oh... hello," This child was clearly far too young to attend this school. She was more surprised over the fact that this child was a little girl and not a boy in the boy's toilets. "It's alright sweetheart, I'm not going to hurt you. Can you open the door for me?" She pointed to the lock in front of the child. "I promise I'm not going to hurt you; I just need you to unlock the door."

Lifting her head, the child gave the woman a confused look, looking as though she was trying to process what she was saying.

"Oh dear," Miss Tanner suspected that she might be deaf, meaning she'd have to find another way inside. "Alright, I'm going to climb over. I knew I shouldn't have worn a skirt." She placed both her hands on the wall of the stall, wondering how she was going to do this. She wasn't exactly very limber, and even though they were only child sized stalls, it was still a long way down.

Making a complete fool of herself, the woman managed to hoist herself over the wall, hearing a tearing noise coming from her skirt as she swung her other leg over. She had been taught by her mother that women were supposed to be graceful creatures, but there was nothing graceful about her climb over the wall.

"Ow," Her shoulder clicked, followed by another rip as a ladder tore its way through her tights.

Finally her feet reached the closed toilet seat in the next stall.

She recomposed herself, before she stepped onto the floor with the scared little girl. Despite not having any shoes or socks on, the adorable child was dressed in a pair of denim dungarees, with a black and white stripy t-shirt underneath. Her hair was tied into braided pig tails either side of her head, making her look completely innocent and adorable, especially with the tears running down her vulnerable little face.

"What's the matter, sweetie?" Miss Tanner let out an exasperated sigh. The child was looking at her lips, but she didn't appear to understand what she was saying. "Oh, dear... what's happened to you, aye? Where's your Mommy and Daddy?" She knelt down in front of the small child, looking into her tearful little eyes. She definitely didn't look old enough to be in this part of the school, she looked as though she belonged in Kindergarten, which was on the opposite side of their school. "How did you get in here, sweetheart?"

The girl just sniffled in response, wiping her hand across her puffy little eyes.

"Let's get you to the office, sweetheart." Miss Tanner unlocked the door, reaching out for her hand with her own, watching the child instantly jumping back from her as if she was terrified of her. "It's alright. I'm not going to hurt you, sweetie." She reached for her hand again, smiling softly as the child carefully wrapped her little fingers around the kind woman's hand.

She stepped out of the stall, watching how shaky the child was on her feet as though she had never used them before. She hesitantly stretched her foot out for her next step, wobbling slightly as she lifted her leg into the air. If it wasn't for Miss Tanner at her side, she would have fallen to her knees.

"Are you alright? Would you like me to carry you?" She suggested, causing the child to flinch back from her again as she tried to lift her up. "Okay, okay... I won't carry you." She stayed at her side, watching as the little girl looked down at her feet, cautiously taking another step.

Her inexperienced little feet started to get the hang of it after a while, picking up a little more speed as they got used to the simple motion of walking.

The Vice Principal led the shy little girl towards the office, sitting her down on one of the chairs, while she had a word with the office staff. She asked them to call the Kindergarten office for her, to see if they had lost a child. She was hoping they had, as a child this age didn't exactly have any form of identification on her, making it nearly impossible to find her parents.

"Miss Tanner," The young lady behind the desk called out to her, signalling her to make her way over to her desk. "The Kindergarten aren't missing any children. They double checked to make sure, but they're all present and accounted for." She glanced up at the little girl now sucking her thumb, asking, "What should we do about her?"

The woman gave her a shrug, "Children don't just appear out of nowhere." She glanced at her watch, checking it against the clock on the wall behind her. "Can you keep her here for a few minutes? I've got a delinquent to find. Ethan Stokes has decided that his classes this week are optional."

"Miss Tanner," The younger woman hurried after her to the office door, stopping her from leaving her alone with the child. "I'm no good with kids. It's the whole reason why I became a secretary."

"I'll be two minutes." She promised her, leaving her files with her. "I've just got to go see his teachers, and ask them where they last saw him. I'll be right back. She's as good as gold anyway." Miss Tanner gave the little girl a smile, before she stepped out of the office.

The receptionist gave out a groan, turning her head to look at the vulnerable little girl still sat on the chair. "Can I get you a drink?" She leant on her knees, looking into the child's big brown eyes. "Glass of water, juice... milk?" When the child remained motionless and silent, she gave out a sigh, returning to her desk. She figured one of the parents must have dumped the mute little girl off as they were sick of caring for her themselves.

Miss Tanner checked with all of Ethan's teachers, realising that the only one he had bothered to attend to today was his first class, and he didn't stay long. She took a quick stroll around the school herself, just to see if she could find him hiding in any of the usual spots, but she couldn't find him anywhere.

"It's come to my attention that we have a missing student." Principal McKeen stepped out of his office, startling her in the hallway. "An... Ethan Stokes," He read off the message that he had just been handed. "Hasn't he just got back from a suspension? Have you called his parents?"

"I was just on my way to." Miss Tanner pointed towards the office, wondering how he knew already. "We have another missing child in the office. She looks like she belongs in Kindergarten, but we called over there and they're not missing any children."

The man bit his lower lip, asking, "You asked her what her name is?"

The woman shook her head, backing away towards the office to check on her. "She won't talk. I don't think the poor dear knows how to. She might be deaf." As she reached the door, she turned around to open it, immediately noticing that the little girl was missing from the chair. "Harriet!" She called over to the young receptionist, pointing her attention towards the empty chair. "Where's she gone?"

Harriet looked up from her desk, dropping her jaw as she realised that she had gone. "Um... I... I don't know. I didn't see her leave. I looked away for a second."

Miss Tanner rolled her eyes at the woman, worrying even more now that the missing child had gone missing again.

* * *

After another feeding, Ethan was set down into the play pen again, given some more toys to play with. His father pressed a kiss to his head, before he hurried away to see who was at his front door. Ethan struggled to his hands and knees, crawling towards the edge of the play pen to see for himself. His father seemed to know whoever it was, as he could hear them laughing.

Leaning against the wooden bars, Ethan squinted his eyes together, trying to see who it was. He widened his eyes as he saw his father kissing them, especially because the person he was kissing was a man. He dropped back to his diapered bottom, feeling his lower lip starting to tremble as his father wrapped his arms around this other man, kissing him more passionately than he had ever seen him kiss his own mother.

"You're late." Nick finally pulled back for breath, sliding his hands towards the younger man's hips. "I was beginnin' to think that you changed your mind about spendin' the day with me."

"As if I would ever change my mind about spending the day with you." He playfully tugged on the older man's belt, pulling him backwards towards the bedroom, as if he had been there before.

"Wait a sec," Ethan's father stole a quick kiss from the younger man's lips, hurrying back to the front room for something. He set down a baby monitor beside the play pen, clicking it on, before he hurried after the younger man towards his bedroom.

Ethan tried to block out the sound of smacking lips from his play pen, feeling as though his father had betrayed him in some way. His mother hadn't started dating anyone else, so why was he?

* * *

**Thanks for reading, please let me know what you think!**

**~ Holly**


	3. Chapter 2: Gone

**Chapter Two: Gone**

"What do you mean she's gone?" Penny practically shouted down the phone at her ex, after he told her that their baby girl had suddenly gone missing. He assured her that he had been checking up on her constantly, and she believed him as he sounded very panicky. Plus this was Nick; he put his kids first over everything else. "Okay... okay... so... what we do now?" She pulled up outside of Ethan's school, starting to panic herself. "Call the police, why? They never have time for missing people, which is why there's so many of them. How are they going to find one baby that disappeared from your living room?"

Ethan hurried his way towards his mother's car, listening to her shouting down the phone at someone. Once he was in the back, he set his bag down on the floor beside him, double checking that he had his Grandfather's device. When he heard his mother mention his father's name, he perked his ears up, trying to listen to their conversation.

"Please Nick, just double the check the house and tell me that you're joking." She pleaded, on the verge of tears. "Buckle up, sweetheart." She glanced over her shoulder at her son, watching him pulling the seatbelt away from his chest to show her that he already had. "Alright, I'll be there in a few minutes. I've just got Ethan from school... alright, bye." She put the phone down, starting up the car again.

"Miss Harding... Miss Harding!" A woman ran towards her in her heels, leaning through the open passenger side window of the woman's car, before she could drive away. "I was wondering if I could have a quick word with you," She peered into the back seat, seeing the sudden reappearance of her missing student. "About your son. I have been trying to call you all day."

"I don't have time, I really have to go." Penny wiped the tears from her eyes, concerning the Vice Principal even more with Ethan's home life. His mother immediately pulled the car away from the school, speeding off in the direction towards her ex's house.

"Mom, what happened?" Ethan clutched the seat either side of him tightly, nervously looking out the window in front of him as his mother weaved through the cars. "Mom!" He shouted as she started to scare him.

His mother blocked him out though, hoping that Nick was about to reveal that this was just a cruel joke to her, but when she turned towards his house, she was immediately greeted by the bright flashing lights of a police car.

Leaving Ethan in the car, she hurried up the path into the open door of Nick's house, finding him talking to the police inside.

Ethan unbuckled himself from the back seat, glad he had full strength back in his hands again. He climbed out the car, wondering what the police were doing at his father's house. Last thing he remembered he was fast asleep in the playpen, trying to block out the sounds of his father laughing and talking with Greg.

The other man's car was gone now, so he assumed that it had nothing to do with that.

He made his way into the house, leaning against the doorframe as he caught sight of his parents arguing in front of the police. It reminded him of when he was younger, when they were still together and arguing constantly.

When they were like this, they blocked everything out around them, including him. He hated it. As much as he wanted them back together again, he didn't want them like this twenty four seven again.

"Mom!" He finally shouted, alerting them of his presence.

"Don't involve him in this Nick, I mean it." Penny warned him, making her way over to her son. "Sweetie, can you go to your room and get on with your homework? Don't worry about any of this." She saw him looking round at the police in his father's front room. "Go on, to your room."

"He's not a baby, Penny. He deserves the right..."

"No he doesn't." She cut her ex off, snatching her son's hand away from his side. It wasn't her intention to treat him like a baby; she just didn't want him to worry about his little sister. She set him up in his bedroom, helping him to get started on his math homework, before she returned to the front room.

At this point it was obvious that something was really wrong, and his parents didn't want him to know about it, but he had to find out.

He gave it a couple of minutes before he snuck out into the hall, keeping against the wall as he listened to what his father was discussing with the police. He appeared to be describing clothing for some reason, sending chills down Ethan's spine as he was describing what he had been wearing when he was in his sister's place.

He sunk down the wall behind him, realising that his sister was missing and it was all his fault. The device must have done something to her, as he was back to normal, but she was gone. He hurried back to his room to find the device, trying to figure out what he had done wrong. He couldn't figure out the dials on his own though, so he decided to take it to the only person that knew exactly how to work it.

His Grandfather, the very man who made it.

He climbed out of his bedroom window so he wouldn't be noticed, taking his bag with his Grandfather's box inside. He knew the way to his house from here, but it was still a really long walk. He thought that he should leave a note for his parents, but he didn't want them to find out what he had done or they might decide to send him into foster care or something, just to get rid of him.

After an hour of walking, his legs started to get tired and his nose started to run as the cold wind continued to sweep past him. He was determined to get there on his own though, feeling even more guilty that his baby sister had disappeared.

It didn't make any sense. If he had returned back to normal in the place where he used the device, why wasn't his sister back too?

Ethan ran through the park near his Grandfather's house, sighing in relief as he saw the man's house in the distance. When his Grandfather's dog was still alive, they used to walk him all the time through the park. It was more familiar to him than the one near his mother's house.

He carefully crossed the road, hurrying up the steps towards the door.

His Grandfather finally opened the door after a few knocks, sighing in relief down the phone pressed against his ear. "Yep, he's here. No... just Ethan." The man frowned into the phone, asking, "How can you lose a one year old that can't even walk yet?" He ushered his grandson into the house, while he tried to calm his daughter down. "Alright, you and Nick continue the search for Avery. I'll keep Ethan here. Yeah... don't worry about him. Tell me when you find her." He put the phone down, before he leant down to his grandson's level. "Are you trying to give your poor mother a heart attack by running off on her like that? As if she hasn't got enough to worry about right now..."

"It's my fault." Ethan blurted, adjusting his bag on his shoulder, so he could pull the box out. "I used it and she's gone."

"Used it?" The man got down on his knees, opening the box to look at the different dials on the device. "Ethan, what exactly did you use it for? I told you to only use it when I was supervising you."

"I wanted to spend some time with Daddy." He defended himself, explaining, "I switched with Avery. It worked for five hours like you said, but now she's gone."

"That's because she switched places with you." His Grandfather studied each of the dials. "The user is always taken back to the device once the change is complete, but the other person isn't replaced to their original spot." He pulled his glasses from his pocket, anxiously biting his lower lip as he looked at the numbers on each of the dials. "According to this you aged her. When you switched places with her, you were transferred to her spot... where were you when you used it?" He glanced up at his grandson, not bothering to finish his original explanation.

"The toilets at school."

"Then the school is where we start." He grabbed his coat, ushering his grandson out the door with him. "There's a five year old with a one year olds mind wandering around out there somewhere. I can change her back, but we have to find her first." He lifted the nine year old into the passenger side of his car, setting the device on his dashboard, before he backed out of the drive. "Why on earth would you want to become your baby sister?"

"To be with Dad!" He defended himself again, glaring at the man. "I hated being a baby again. I just wanted to be with my Daddy. But I never wonna see him again. I hate him."

"Why?" His Grandfather directed the car off towards the school, suspecting his grandson had seen something he wasn't supposed to. "That's what happens when you invade the privacy of people's lives. I did warn you about that. You see people in a whole new light from a different perspective," He chuckled softly at the thought, "especially from your angle."

"Can we just find my sister?" Ethan folded his arms across his chest, scowling at the older man. "Will she remember any of it?"

"She's a one year old." He reminded him, pulling up to the school gate. "Just like how your mind transferred to her body, her delicate one year old mind is still with her. You only aged her body with the device." He grabbed for it off the dashboard, ushering his grandson out of the car to find his missing granddaughter. "Your mother will kill me if she finds out that I gave you this."

"Does Mom know about it?" Ethan jumped out the car, hurrying after his Grandfather into the school.

"She played with it a few times when she was your age. She turned her mother into a teenager, one of her friends into a six year old and her cousin into a baby." He remembered, opening the main door for his grandson. "I think she forgot about it though. After I banned her from using it, she just thought that it was all imaginary. She never did anything to herself though, it was always other people."

"I'm sorry, we're closed right now." Harriet caught the two of them making their way towards the office. "The lost property box is down the hall." She pointed them towards it.

"We haven't lost anything... like that," Ethan's Grandfather stopped the young woman from walking away from them. "We're looking for a little girl. She'll be about five," He sighed softly, trying to think what she'd look like. For obvious reasons, he hadn't actually seen her past the age of one, so it was hard to tell. He decided to describe his own daughter at that age, figuring they'd look pretty much the same. "Brown hair, big brown eyes, her hair will probably be down to her shoulders... about this tall." He lowered his hand slightly lower than Ethan's height.

"Oh," Harriet finally got it, ushering him towards one of the offices. She knocked on the door, waiting for a response, before she opened the door. "This man is here about that missing child from earlier."

"The little girl?" Vice Principal Tanner looked up at her, frowning slightly as she saw Ethan and his Grandfather stood behind her. "Ethan, what are you doing back here?" She climbed to her feet from behind her desk, making her way towards them.

"The little girl." His Grandfather piped up, pocketing the device so she wouldn't ask what it was. "Where is she?"

"I thought..." She looked at Ethan, before she turned to look at the older man. "Ethan's sister is just a baby."

"I know... she's my... son's... brother's son's daughter." He explained to her, remembering that he only had the one child and all the teachers here knew it. "Ethan's cousin. So, where is she? Her families worried sick about her."

"She's not here." Harriet pointed out to them. "She ran away."

"When? How long ago?" He looked between the two women, realising they didn't have the vaguest idea. "Nice. So she's out there all on her own now?" He turned to walk away, starting to panic himself as his grandchild was out there alone in a world she didn't understand. "Alright, where would she go?" He looked over his shoulder, watching his grandson hurrying to catch up with him. "Where would your sister go? What does she like?"

"Sleeping." Ethan shrugged, getting a scowl out of his Grandfather. "She's a baby; she doesn't do anything else _but_ sleep. How would I know?"

"The park." He dragged Ethan by his arm towards the car. "She might go somewhere more familiar to her than your school. Where does your mother usually take you?"

* * *

Handing her ex a coffee, Penny took a seat beside him, clutching her own mug tightly in her hands. "I'm sorry." Her voice croaked with emotion. She immediately took a small sip of the hot liquid, trying to gulp it back with her tears. "I didn't mean to blame you. But how can you lose a one year old, Nicky? I know she's small... but..."

Nick climbed to his feet again, sensing she was going to start blaming him again.

"I'm sorry." She called after him, pulling her phone from her pocket as her mother returned her call. "Hello... nope... no, we haven't... I... I know... well..." She sighed heavily, not being able to get a word in as her mother lectured her about parenting, just like she always did.

Nick made his way over to the play pen across the room, leaning against the edge as he looked at the spot where his daughter had been sat. He wished that he could blame himself for this, but he wasn't even with Greg at the time. The younger man had left while Avery was fast asleep. Nick checked on her after he said goodbye to Greg, then started to make lunch. As soon as he made his and Avery's lunch, he made his way back to the play pen and she was gone.

He didn't know how she could have gotten out. The door of the play pen was still locked; all the doors to his house were locked, just like the windows. He searched the whole house anyway, but she was nowhere to be seen as if she had just disappeared out of thin air.

"That was my Mom." Penny made her way over to him. "She hasn't seen Avery, and she thinks it's completely irresponsible of me to blame you for her disappearance, just because she was with you at the time." She gave Nick a small smile as he glanced up at her. "I'm sorry; I've just never lost anything before, especially not my baby girl."

"I have." He reminded her of his best friend, Warrick, while he was running his hands through his hair. "I don't understand how she can just be gone." He jumped as he heard a knock at the door, hoping it was the police with his baby girl. He hurried for the door, sighing in disappointment as he saw Penny's father stood outside. "What?"

"Nice to see you too, I need to talk to you two." He ushered Ethan into the house, closing the door behind him. "Nick, Penny... you might want to take a seat for this." He removed the device from his pocket, glaring at the two of them as they didn't respond.

"C'mon," Ethan dragged his parents over to the sofa, sitting them down. He took his own seat between them, knowing he was going to be in serious trouble after his Grandfather spilled the beans, but he was more concerned about where his little sister was.

"Alright," Penny's father paced the room a moment, trying to think of a way to explain it without sounding like an escaped mental patient. "Basically... Penny, do you remember when you were around Ethan's age and you found one of my... inventions and you started playing around with it," He looked at his daughter, who was looking back at him with a blank stare. He held up the device to her, hoping it would jog her memory. "You were playing around with it and you turned your mother into a teenager the night she was supposed to cater for that big dinner party that would have got her that big promotion..."

"Is this goin' somewhere?" Nick angrily interrupted him, not really wanting to listen to a trip down memory lane.

"Hang on," The man looked back at his daughter, holding the device a little closer to her. "You turned your cousin into a baby with it, that time that he was really annoying you and he missed his date with Lindsay Stewart..."

"The girl he had a crush on for three years." Penny remembered, reaching out for the familiar device to take a closer look. "You and Mom told me that I imagined all of that though. You kept laughing and saying it's my over active imagination that made me think all that up."

"I'm sorry." He apologised for that. "But your mother didn't want you growing up thinking that... things like that are possible."

"Is there a point to all of this crazy talk?" Nick glared at his ex father in law again.

"Yes." He grabbed for the device from his daughter's hands, taking a seat on the coffee table in front of Nick. "See I made this invention a long time ago that was supposed to allow the user to read people's minds, but it didn't exactly work out like that. What it does is switch the users mind with whoever they choose to switch with, along with a few other things. Ethan for example," He pointed to his grandchild. "He used it this morning to make himself switch places with Avery."

Nick looked at his son sat beside him, before he cast his eyes back to the man in front of him. "Ethan... switched places with Avery?"

"Don't blame him; he wanted to spend some more time with you. He wasn't fully aware of what he doing." The man defended his grandson, explaining, "The point is, the device stored Ethan's being... his body basically, while his mind was transferred into his baby sister. Ethan accidentally did something to Avery too. She was transferred to the device... but Ethan messed with some of the dials." He held it up to Nick to explain what they did.

"Avery's in there?" Nick pointed to it, not quite understanding what he was saying.

"No." Ethan spoke up, looking down at his hands.

"Dad, what the hell were you thinking giving this to my son?" Penny shouted at him.

"I told him not to use it without me around." Once he was finished defending himself, he looked back at the confused young man in front of him, feeling guilty as he saw his heart broken face. "Okay, basically what Ethan did was transfer himself to Avery, and this dial here was pointed at five when the changes took place, so Avery has... aged five years. If it hadn't been fiddled with, Avery would have just been stored like Ethan's body was."

"Avery's five?" Penny grabbed the device from her father's hands, hating him for ever inventing the stupid thing. "You can change her back though, right?"

"Yes, we just have to find her first. I can only transfer my mind to her from a distance, but even then I have to know where she is. Ethan knew she'd be with Nick today, so it was easier for him to switch places with her. Anyway... it shouldn't be too hard to find her, with your help." He looked at Nick sat in front of him. "Call off the search for the baby Avery and start a search for a missing five year old child. You'll find her a lot faster and I'll be able to get her back to normal."

"I don't believe any of this." Nick climbed to his feet, grabbing his phone off the counter. "I'm gonna call Brass and see if they've made any progress yet. We'll find her a lot quicker when we're not listenin' to stupid stories."

"They're not stupid!" Ethan protested, grabbing the device from his Grandfather's hands. He quickly fiddled with a few of the dials, pointing it at his Grandfather to prove it. "I'll show you."

"No, Ethan!" His Grandfather shouted, realising what setting he had it on.

The man in his mid fifties looked down at his hands, watching the wrinkles across the backs of his hands starting to disappear. His skin became plumper as he regressed back to a man in his thirties. The widows peak on his head filled in with hair, as did the small bald spot on the back of his head.

Nick finally looked up, blinking a few times as his ex father in law started to shrink. Not just in height, but his arms and legs started to shrink too. His face was getting younger too. The grey facial hair was now the same colour as the hair on his head, but it started falling out as he reached his early teens.

"Dad, what do I do?" Penny had hold of the device now, trying to reverse what her son had done.

Her father was nearly the same height as Ethan now, but he was still shrinking, practically drowning in the oversized clothes that he had been wearing. His legs eventually gave out, sending him toppling back to the floor behind him onto his much rounder bottom. His arms and legs disappeared into his clothes, while his face become much rounder and rosier like a little baby.

"He's stopped." Penny sighed in relief, but she realised that her father was the only one who knew how to work the device properly, so he couldn't turn himself back into a grown up. "He's one." She looked at the dials, giving her son beside her a glare. "How the hell are we supposed to help your baby sister now? You've turned your Grandfather into a drooling one year old." She dropped the device to the sofa, while she searched for her phone to call her mother. She didn't know if the woman would be able to help, but she didn't have a choice.

Her father was now a baby and her baby girl was still missing.

Across the room, Nick was still staring open mouthed at the heap of clothing in the middle of the room, with a round baby's head sticking out the top. He thought perhaps that the lack of sleep had finally got to him and he was seeing things. There was no possible way that a man in his fifties could suddenly turn into a baby.

"Mom... it's me... yeah... no, we still haven't found her. We have another problem though." She looked over her shoulder, watching her father examining his tiny sausage like fingers. "No, Mom . . . it's Dad. He's a baby."

* * *

**Thank you janet1982 for your review! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter.**

**Please let me know what you think.**

**Have a great weekend.**

**~ Holly**


	4. Chapter 3: Fountain of Youth

**Chapter Three: Fountain of Youth**

Taking a seat beside his son in the break room, Nick handed him the glass of juice from his hands, still coming to terms with the fact that his ex father in law had a device that could switch people's minds and alter their age. He was more concerned with the drastic measures that his own son took to spend some time with him, even if he wasn't aware that it was him. He was about to open his mouth to speak to him, when the doors to the break room burst open and Sara stepped inside.

"Nick, a store manager noticed a child wandering around on the security cameras. She left before he could find her, but he sent us the tapes." She held them up from her hand, seeing a look of relief on Nick's face. She still didn't know why they had suddenly started searching for a five year old child, instead of his one year old baby.

But she was willing to help Nick no matter what.

"Thanks." He climbed to his feet, taking the tapes off her hands. "I can take a look at them myself. You should sit down." He indicated towards her stomach.

"I'm fine, I'm pregnant not sick." Sara gave him a small smile, holding the door open for him. "Hey Nick," She stopped him from disappearing down the hall. "Are you alright?" She gave him a curious look. "Your ex, Penny... she said that you found the baby, but now this... what's really going on? You don't exactly look that happy about finding your baby."

"I..." He looked at the tapes in his hands, wondering what his own daughter even looked like now. "I'll explain it to you later." He promised her, backing away towards the AV lab. He knew she wasn't going to accept the answer, but he didn't have time to waste explaining it to her. He cleared a work space on Archie's cluttered desk, taking the first disc from its case to go through it.

Luckily the manager had left a posit note stuck to the front, of the time the child had entered the store, so he didn't have to carefully go through the whole thing. He ran the tape forwards to the right time, feeling his heart slowing in his chest as a small little girl wandered through the aisles of the store. He paused it as the camera picked up more of her facial features, slowly zooming it in to take a closer look at her.

He didn't believe for a second that it was his baby girl, but her eyes were the same shape and adorable size as Avery's. Her hair was the same colour as his, only it was much longer than the few curled strands she had on her head just a few hours ago.

"Is that her?" Penny startled him, peering over his shoulder to look at the child.

"I don't think so." Nick turned away from the monitor, giving his ex a frown as her arms were empty. "Where's the baby? You didn't just leave him somewhere did you?"

"Relax; I put him in Avery's carrier. He's in the break room with Ethan. He's wearing Avery's clothes, so they all think that its her." She took a seat beside him, looking at the computer monitor, rather than the large one on the wall. "Wow, she's so grown up. And skinny, remember Ethan at that age?" She smiled at the memory of her chubby little boy.

"It's not her." Nick took the image off the screen. "This whole thing is ridiculous. We really shouldn't be wastin' time with this. Our baby is out there somewhere, and we're wastin' time by buyin' into this crap."

"You don't have to buy into anything, Nicky. You saw it in front of your own eyes." She decided to remind him. "I've had to put my father in a diaper because of Ethan."

"It's not his fault." Nick defended his son, running his fingers through his hair as he tried to think. "Why would your father make a stupid invention like this anyway? And why would he give it to a nine year old? Your mother's always callin' you the irresponsible one. She might wonna try lookin' closer to home."

"That's why they broke up." Penny pointed out to him, hitting the same key that Nick had to bring the image back on the screen. "Wow... look at her. She even looks like you. Look at those eyes, deep soulful eyes, long dark eye lashes... if we compare this to a picture of you as a child, you'd look like twins."

Nick reluctantly turned back to the screen, selecting another disc to watch. He selected the one from the camera located by the door, so he could see if she left alone. "Says she left half hour ago." He pointed to the time in the corner. "You do your weekly shops here, don't you?"

"Uh huh," Penny nodded, using the same keys Nick had to play the video forwards. She watched the vulnerable little girl walking around, wondering what the poor child was thinking or even doing there.

Climbing to his feet, Nick made a beeline for the layout room across the hall, taking the map off his co-worker's hands. The stunned younger man watched as the concerned father snatched his pen from his hands, marking Ethan's school with an X. "What are you doing?" Greg gave him a curious look.

Nick ignored him for a moment, marking the park where she was sighted, along with the store with another X. "She's tryin' to find us." Nick realised, dotting his ex's house, realising it was the next place that she was familiar with. "Your car here?" He looked up at Greg.

The younger man immediately reached for his keys in his back pocket, handing them over to Nick. "You gonna tell me what's going on yet?"

"Later. Thanks, G." Nick thanked him for the keys, hurrying for the elevator so he could get there in time. If what his ex father in law said was true, he didn't want his one year old daughter trapped in a five year olds body to be wandering around on her own any longer.

He turned Greg's radio off so he wasn't deafened with his music, carefully pulling out of the parking spot, before he put his foot down to speed off in the direction of his ex's house. He didn't know how well Avery knew the route, so he looked out for her as he got closer, feeling as though he was going mad.

He couldn't believe that he was even considering this possibility, it was crazy.

Leaving the car running outside the house, Nick climbed out of the car, looking around at all the identical houses around him, considering the fact that his one year old might get confused as to which house was hers.

She couldn't read yet, so looking at the numbers was of no use to her.

He quickly checked around the outside of the house, including the back yard, before he climbed back in the car. He didn't know where she would go next, but he decided to drive slowly around Penny's neighbourhood to see if he could find a lost looking child anywhere.

* * *

Looking up as his mother walked through the hall again, Ethan was starting to feel as though he should go and apologise to her for what he had done. He didn't mean to turn his Grandfather into a baby, he was just trying to prove a point so his father would believe him and they could get on and find his baby sister.

Since his mother had confiscated the device away from him though, he couldn't exactly try and use the device to turn his Grandfather back.

Now that he had time to think about it, he understood what his Grandfather meant about the dials and what they did. If he could just get his hands on the device again, he could point it at the baby across the room, adjust the dials to a more suitable age, then zap him back.

But his mother didn't trust him.

He didn't think his father even trusted him at this point. He couldn't even look him in the eye. That's probably the reason why he left so suddenly too, because he didn't want to be anywhere near him.

Climbing to his feet, Ethan walked towards the door, watching his mother anxiously biting her fingernails as she paced the halls in the lab. She was carrying her shoulder strap purse over her shoulder, with the device inside. If he could just get it away from her, he could change his Grandfather back, so they could go and find his sister.

But he still had to wait five hours.

The device wouldn't work again on his Grandfather for another four hours, as he had only been a baby for one hour so far. He slumped down onto one of the chairs around the table, feeling his stomach growling angrily in hunger. He had eaten a few liquefied foods when he was a baby, but he himself hadn't had anything to eat since breakfast this morning.

He wanted to ask his mother for something to eat, but she couldn't even look at him either. If they knew how sorry he was, neither of them would be treating him like this.

"Hiya, kiddo." Catherine suddenly joined him in the break room, fetching herself another coffee from the machine. "You alright in here by yourself?" He gave her a shrug in response, resting against his elbow on the table. She sensed that he was just as upset as his father, but she didn't know why. "It's not much fun hanging out in here by yourself, huh?" She knelt down in front of him, setting her coffee on the table beside him. "Maybe we could find you something to do? I'm sure someone around here needs an assistant."

"I'm not a baby." He glared at the woman.

"I know you're not a baby. My own daughter made me stop babying her when she was five years old. She's quite a bit older than you at the moment. You might remember her actually, but I doubt it, you were only three when you met her." She rambled a moment, before she tried to convince him, "Being an assistant to a crime lab technician is a big responsibility. I wouldn't offer the opportunity to just anyone. Maybe Greg needs someone to help him out..."

"No." Ethan stopped her there. "I don't wonna be an assistant, especially to him."

"Okay, not Greg then." She wondered why he was so against being Greg's assistant. The younger man was usually great with the kids that they dealt with in the lab. "You wonna come and help, Mandy out in the print lab? She can show you how..."

"Leave me alone, Aunt Catherine." Ethan cut her off, turning his head away from her.

"Is everything alright?" She placed her hand on the child's back, making sure he wasn't crying. She knew that he was just as sensitive as his father, but like the older man, he preferred to bottle his emotions in front of people. "Are you worried about your little cousin? Two disappearances in one day is quite a lot to go through, but if they found your baby sister, I'm sure they'll be able to find your cousin."

"She's not my cousin." He spun round to face her. "They didn't find my baby sister; they're still looking for her. That's not my sister." He pointed to the baby across the room. "That's my Granddad. I turned him into a baby and my sister into a five year old. It's all my fault."

"Ethan!" His mother shouted from the door, giving Catherine a smile as the woman looked round at her open mouthed. "Kids huh, let their imaginations run wild."

"It's not my imagination!" He protested, grabbing for his mother's bag. He quickly rummaged through it, presenting the device to the woman in front of him. "I did it with this. Now they hate me."

"I don't hate you." His mother fought to hold onto her bag, keeping her son from pressing any buttons on device again. "Stop it, Ethan. You're acting childish." She grabbed the device back, shoving it back into her bag. "Don't listen to a word he's saying." She held the bag behind her back, holding her son out in front of her with her arm extended. "I'm not letting you touch it again. You've done enough damage as it is."

Catherine looked between the two of them confused, deciding to butt out and let the problem continue within the family.

Ethan stormed out of the room before she could leave though, wiping away the tears in his eyes as he hurried for the elevator. He pressed the button a few times to call it up, but soon caught sight of his mother out the corner of his eye.

Before she could catch up to him, he made a beeline for the staircase, taking them two at a time. He knew his mother wouldn't be able to catch him, as she hadn't been able to keep up with him since he started running at the age of three.

He wasn't planning on running away too far; he just needed some space from her.

"Ethan! Ethan!" She shouted down the staircase to him, spotting a grey haired lab tech coming down the stairs above her. "Excuse me, where does this lead?"

"Eh... right down to the parking lot." Hodges recognised the woman as Nick's ex wife, but he didn't know what she was doing here as he had been out of the loop for a while. "Would you like me to?" He didn't know why he was offering to chase after a child, he hated children, but he hated running even more.

"Please." She accepted his offer, giving the kind stranger a smile as he hurried down the stairs after the child. "His name is Ethan!" She shouted after him, wondering if the poor guy could make it.

Penny returned to the break room, setting her purse down on the sofa. She picked up her father as he started to cry, patting him on the back like she did for Avery, but it didn't settle him down right away, making her even more tense then she already was.

"Oh c'mon Dad, don't do this to me now." She bounced him against her side, widening her eyes as she saw Catherine stood at the door again.

"Dad?" She looked at the baby in the woman's arms. "What exactly is going on? What Ethan said... it wasn't true, was it?"

"No." Penny forced a laugh, shaking her head at the woman. "Don't be absurd. It's just his over active imagination." She kept up her fake laugh, but Catherine didn't appear to be buying into it. "This is... eh... Eldon, my... brot... cousins, cousin's brother's son. My nephew." She nervously rambled, using her father's real name as she indicated towards the baby in her arms. "Our daughter, Avery... she's with my mother, at her grandmother's. We didn't want to disturb her sleep by bringing her here."

"But you brought your nephew?"

"It was... okay, shit." Penny sighed, dropping onto the sofa with the baby in her arms. "Yes, it's true. My father is an inventor. He made this stupid invention that was supposed to read people's minds, but he screwed it up... as usual. This _is_ my father." She patted the baby's back. "An hour ago he was a fifty year old man, now he's a baby again because my son decided to prove a point by reusing the device on him." She reached into her purse, showing Catherine the device as proof that she wasn't going mad.

"This... it looks like a television remote." The woman took it from her hands, studying it carefully. She hadn't gotten a good look at it earlier, but it still didn't look very impressive. "How can a cheap piece of plastic like this do that?" She pointed to the baby in the woman's arms, wondering if she should call the psych ward.

"I don't know. If he could talk, he'd explain it to you. He explained it to me once, but I was younger than, Ethan. I just thought it was a cool toy."

Catherine looked at the device in her hands, softly biting her lower lip as she thought about what it could do. If it really could make a fifty year old man into a baby in under an hour, she couldn't help but imagine the wonders that it could do for her. She could finally get Bryan Hammond, the yummy new acting assistant supervisor to look at her.

Of course she'd have to be more careful with the settings; she didn't want to end up like Eldon as a baby.

Leaving Penny alone in the break room, Catherine managed to slip the device away from her while she was distracted, making her way into the ladies rest room with it. She looked in the mirror once she was alone, thinking she could probably lose about twenty years and become a perky young woman again, but she thought she had better make it ten, just to be on the safe side.

She changed the top dial to ten, leaving the others as they were. She hesitated a moment, wondering if ten years was too much. She figured she better change it to eight, hoping that it wouldn't show too much, but just enough to make her look better.

The more she thought about it though, the more she started to worry.

"Five years." She groaned, adjusting the dial again. If she saw a difference at five years, she figured she could take away a couple of years after that. Better to be on the safe side, she didn't want to relive her childhood.

The first time was bad enough.

Once she was ready, she pushed the biggest button on the bottom, feeling strange tingles running through her arms and legs. She figured that the device had started working, rejuvenating her skin by a few years to make her more attractive to the men, especially Bryan.

Catherine turned to face the mirror, excited to watch her skin become younger. She was surprised to see that she had lost some height, but then she looked down and realised that she wasn't wearing her heels. She had pulled on a pair of her lowest heels on the way out the door this morning, due to her back problems lately.

She stepped out of them as they started to feel big on her, noticing that her jeans were becoming looser around the waist. She smiled realising that she was losing five years of weight that she had recently put on. She wasn't aware that she had put on that much in the last five years, but at least she'd come out the other side with a flat stomach.

As her blouse started to loosen too, she cupped her hands over her breasts, widening her eyes in horror as they started to deflate. She thought they would become more perky and rounded, not shrink.

Her jeans started to slip down her slimmer thighs, her hair grew longer and redder, but she wasn't excited about it anymore. Her breasts had completely disappeared into her body, along with her curves. She lost even more inches in height, followed by even more weight around her legs, buttocks and waist.

When she finally stopped regressing, she could barely reach the sink. Her jeans and underwear were tangled around her ankles, leaving her bare little twig like legs exposed to anyone who walked in. She could feel the under wiring of her bra against her chest, but she no longer had the bust to fill it out, making her look like a child trying on her mother's clothes.

"Help me." She squeaked in her new voice, immediately starting to cry as she had lost everything that she had going for her. No man would look at her now, and the one's that did should be arrested.

* * *

Nick anxiously tapped his fingers against the steering wheel of Greg's car, patrolling his own neighbourhood for the second time. He knew that he was kidding himself by now. She probably just found the store and the park by chance, as she clearly couldn't find her way back to either of their houses. He was about to turn back for the lab and turn himself in for believing that a plastic device could change people, when he spotted a child sat on the swings by herself, in the park close to his house.

He parked Greg's car on the side of the road, looking into the distance to get a closer look at the little girl. If she had her head up it might have been easier to tell, but her chin was resting against her chest, while she swung her legs backwards and forwards. Most kids by her age had learnt that you put both legs out straight to go forwards, tucking them under you to go back, but she appeared to be having trouble with it.

She was also bare footed, and there weren't any other people or children around, indicating that she was alone.

Pocketing the younger man's keys, Nick made his way towards the gate of the park, feeling ridiculous for believing that this child was his baby girl. He decided to make his way over to her anyway, just to see if she was okay.

Seeing a shadow cast on the floor in front of her, the child lifted her head, clutching the chains of the swing tightly in her little hands. The tall figure had the bright sunshine behind them, making it difficult to see who it was through the blinding rays of light.

Now that Nick was close enough, he could study her facial features, admitting to himself that she did look very similar to his baby girl. He knelt down so he was no longer in the bright sun light, getting a closer look at her big brown eyes. "Hi." He spoke softly, feeling a shiver running down his spine as he saw the same scar on her forehead. His baby girl had one in the exact same place, having hit her head on the edge of her mother's coffee table when she was learning to crawl. She had two stitches in her head to seal the cut up, but it still left a deep noticeable scar to her forehead.

The child looked back into his eyes, sensing some familiarity with his face. She removed her hands from the swing chains, sliding forwards on the seat to take a closer look at the man. He didn't seem as strange as all the other grownups she had seen today; instead she felt a strange sense of comfort now that he was nearby.

"Do you know who I am?" He asked her, seeing what Penny meant about the twins thing. She really did look just like him at that age.

The child placed her clumsy feet flat on the ground, giving the man an inquisitive look. She recognised him even more now that they were eye level, bringing a familiar smile to her adorable little face. "Dada." She spoke the only word she had learnt, sounding it out exactly the way Avery did.

"Yeah, baby girl." Nick mirrored her smile, seeing his baby girl more clearly now. "I'm your Dada." He immediately opened his arms to her, bringing the vulnerable little girl in close against the recognizable warmth of his chest. He kissed her moist little forehead, examining the scar on her forehead again. The caramel flecks in her eyes completely mirrored his own, and he noticed a tiny mole that she had behind her left ear, smiling wider as his baby girl had one in the exact same spot. "Daddy's here, baby girl."

* * *

**Thanks for reading, please review if you liked it!**

**Have a great weekend!**

**~ Holly**


	5. Chapter 4: Lost

**Chapter Four: Lost**

When he thought enough time had passed, Ethan climbed out of his hiding spot, double checking that the lab tech had really given up on his search for him. When he saw that it was clear, he decided to make his way back up to the crime lab where his father worked. He was hoping that his mother had set her bag down by now, so he could get his hands on the device, but he wasn't holding his breath.

She was guarding that thing as if it was pure gold.

The lab appeared to be busier than it was earlier, but his father still wasn't back, meaning his sister wasn't back to normal either. It still hadn't been enough time to change his Grandfather back anyway, as he had been gone for less than an hour, meaning they still had three hours left before they could change him back.

He made his way towards the break room, finding his mother fast asleep on the sofa, while his Grandfather was still in the baby carrier, fast asleep and drooling down himself.

No real change there, but he was still just a baby.

Ethan crept over to his mother, noticing her bag left abandoned on the sofa beside her. He opened it slightly to take a look inside, feeling his heart skipping a beat as he didn't see the device right away. He started frantically searching through the bag, throwing her purse, lip gloss, eyeliner and various other bits of makeup across the floor, freaking out as it had completely gone.

The device itself wasn't exactly that small, but that didn't stop him from digging around in every corner of the tiny bag. All it turned up was a furry mint and a certain lady product that he had no clue about.

He crawled around on his hands and knees across the break room floor, hoping it had just fallen out and rolled under something, but there was no sign of it anywhere. He climbed to his feet once the room had been turned upside down, looking out at the big lab beyond the glass, wondering if someone in it took it somewhere to be experimented on.

If they had they'd be taking it apart, completely destroying the magical properties that would make his Grandfather and sister normal again.

As he glanced up again, he spotted a child escaping the ladies room in the lab, with toilet roll wrapped around her legs. She was wearing a very large blouse over her top half, making Ethan smile as his Aunt Catherine had been wearing the exact same thing. His father had always said (in private) that the woman would do anything to become young again; she had obviously tried the device on herself.

But Ethan had no idea that she wanted to be this young.

"Aunt Catherine." He hurried down the hall after the little girl, who just managed to make it into the locker room to properly cover herself with the clean towel that she kept in her locker. She looked very surprised as he knew her name, even more surprised as he was grinning widely at her. "Aunt Catherine, where is it?"

"Where's what?" She squeaked, realising she was now so much shorter than Ethan, making her even more embarrassed.

"The device." He pushed aside the red headed little girl, checking her open locker door to see if she had hidden it somewhere. "Aunt Catherine, I need that device to turn my Granddad back to normal."

"Stop calling me that." She hissed at him, hurrying over to the locker room door to close it. She leant against it, giving out a small sigh of relief as no one else had noticed her. "How do you know who I am?"

"Because I'm not stupid. I told you it was real. Now where is it?" He demanded to know, getting more and more anxious. "I know you have it."

Catherine stepped over to the bench, unravelling her long jeans, revealing the plastic device. "Can you change me back?" She held it out of Ethan's reach above her head; not really much of a stretch for the nine year child. "Change me back and I'll give it to you." As Ethan tried to reach for it again, Catherine climbed back onto the bench behind her, finally holding it way above his head so she could get the answers she needed. "Ethan, I have to get back to normal. I'm still at work. I have a daughter. You've gotta help me out here. It was an accident."

The other child chuckled softly, thinking how odd it was for a five year old to say they had a daughter. "I'm sorry, I can't. Not for another five hours. That's why we can't change my Granddad back yet." He jumped up on his tiptoes, stretching his arm out for the device.

Catherine pulled it away though, causing him to hit one of the other buttons that he hadn't pressed yet.

"No! What did you do?" He immediately accused her, feeling a strange tingle running down his spine. He grabbed the device, feeling his heart slowing in his chest as he waited to see what was going to happen to them. "What have you done to me?"

"I didn't do anything." She felt the same strange tingle. "It was you, you snot nosed little brat!"

"I'm older than you!"

"No you are not!"

A bright white light suddenly filled the room, blinding the both of them. It eventually faded out, leaving them to rub their sore eyes open.

"Ow! What was that?" Catherine kept her hands over her eyes, fearing she had been blinded as they hurt so much. "I thought you said I had to wait for five hours!" She shouted, noticing how different her voice sounded. She wasn't exactly used to the little girl voice she had been given, but this was different to the one she had before.

"That's what my Granddad said." He defended himself, yanking the device from the other child's hands, once he could see again. The dial beneath the button wasn't pointing at a specific number, making him worry that they were going to disintegrate into nothing.

"What is it? What's gonna happen?" She anxiously bit her fingertips, focusing her eyes on the device, rather than the child.

"Shh," Ethan hissed at her, realising that the tingling had stopped. He lowered the device to his side, seeing a towel wrapped around his waist. He quickly glanced up, giving out a girlish squeak as he saw himself stood in front of him. He hadn't noticed their differences in height as he was stood on the bench.

Catherine looked up too, covering her hand over her mouth as she saw a little girl with red hair stood in front of her. "You switched us!" She accused him in his own voice. "Switch us back, I don't want to be a boy."

"I don't want to be a girl either!" He shrieked back at her, pushing the same button again, but this time it didn't do anything. He started to frantically punch his thumb into the button, but it still wasn't doing anything.

"Breaking it won't solve anything." Catherine snatched the device out of his hands, surprised at her strength. A minute ago she was struggling to open the ladies room door. "Maybe it really does only work every five hours. I used it once then you used it, so we both have to wait five hours before we can use it again." She surmised.

"That's the stupidest thing I ever heard!" The little girl shrieked.

"Well it's not working, so I must be right." She childishly remarked, folding her arms across her chest. "We'll just have to wait it out... and not tell anyone in the process." She warned him. "I don't want anyone to know that I was a ten year old boy for five hours of my life."

"I'm nine!" He protested.

"Whatever." Catherine pushed her locker door shut, stopping him from peaking inside. "We better find you some clothes, and an excuse as to why you are here. Maybe you're my girlfriend from school, come to check up on Ethan after all the drama here today. No, that's kinda sick... considering your only five and all."

"I don't have a girlfriend." Stepping off the bench, Ethan held the towel in place around his waist, feeling it beginning to slip. He looked down at himself, realising that he had a red lace bra on beneath his blouse. He was a lot smaller than his former self now, bringing tears to his eyes as his father would never believe him if Catherine got to him first. "How about I just tell them the truth? It's not like my Mommy won't believe me. She's always saying that you're a brazen hussy who needs to act her age." He used her exact words that a child of his age would never normally use.

Catherine dropped her jaw, giving the smaller child a shove into the locker. She didn't mean to push the kid so hard; she just wasn't used to this new body. "I for one am not a brazen hussy and your mother is a slut for saying that."

"She is not." Ethan cried, more from the shock of being forced into a locker. It was like being back at school again.

"Is too!"

"She is not! You don't know anything about her." Ethan pushed Catherine back, sending her toppling over the bench in the middle of the room. He bit his lower lip as she stumbled right over it, hitting her head on the floor. "I'm sorry, Aunt Catherine." He hobbled around the bench, clutching the towel tightly as he checked on Catherine in his body. "Are you okay?"

Catherine clutched her head tightly in both hands, trying to hold her tears in. She wanted to get Ethan back for hurting her like that, but she knew it wouldn't solve anything. She was the grown up between the two of them, so she had to take the higher ground.

"Aunt Catherine, I'm really sorry. Are you okay?" He asked her again, helping himself to his feet. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push you so hard."

"It's okay." Catherine wiped her eyes, still feeling her head throbbing. She really did want to cry, but she didn't want to give Ethan the satisfaction. She hadn't cried over a man in years, she didn't want a nine year old boy to be the first. "Ow, that really hurt."

"I'm sorry." The little girl in front of her apologised again.

"It's okay, we still have to find you some clothes though."

"Uh oh," The child looked towards the door, realising that they weren't alone anymore. He clutched the towel around his waist a little tighter, giving the woman a nervous wave. "Hi, Aunt Sara."

* * *

Gently rocking his little girl in his arms, Nick pressed a kiss to the top of her head, realising that she had finally fallen asleep. He used the same technique on her that he used on his one year old version of Avery, that seemed to work like a charm. He reached for his phone now that she was asleep, giving his ex a call to assure her that their baby was safe.

Penny searched for her bag in the break room as she heard a ringing sound, realising her purse had been knocked onto the floor. She crawled on her hands and knees towards the table, quickly grabbing her phone before it stopped ringing. "_Hello?"_

"Hi, it's me." Nick spoke softly, smoothing his hand up and down his baby's back to keep her settled. "I found her. She's safe . . . she's beautiful." He brushed his fingertip across her cheek. "She was at the park near my house."

"_Is she alright?"_ Penny crawled across the floor, stuffing her things back into her bag. "_How's she seem?"_

Nick smiled into the phone, not sure how to answer her. "She's just... Avery. She's still just a baby... our baby. You might wonna pick up some bigger diapers on your way over though." He realised that she was wet. "Since we can't change her back till we get your father back, we'll have to take care of her like this for a while."

"_She's okay though?"_ She climbed to her feet, pulling her bag on over her shoulder. She felt as though she was missing something from her bag, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. "_She's not damaged or anything, right?"_

"Why don't you come over and see for yourself?" He suggested to her. "Don't forget, Ethan... and your father."

Penny nodded into her phone, smelling a dirty diaper in the room. She glanced over her shoulder, rolling her eyes as she realised that it was coming from her father. "_Wait..."_ She opened her bag again, realising what she had forgotten. "_The device... it's... it's gone."_

"What do you mean it's gone?" He leant forwards on his chair, feeling the wet spot from his daughter even more now that he was leant closer. "Who could have taken it from you in there?"

"_Ethan."_ The woman groaned, realising that her son was missing too. "_Damn it, Ethan. I'll find him. He was bugging me about it earlier. I didn't think he'd take it off me while I was sleeping."_

"Penny, he could have done anythin' with it in that time."

"_Relax, I'll find him."_ She immediately hung up on him, not wanting to get blamed for this mess. She quickly pulled her shoes on, grabbing her father in the carry cot, before she went on search for her son in the lab. She didn't think that he could have gotten far, but then again, she didn't know how long she had been asleep for.

While his ex was searching the lab, Nick climbed to his feet, carrying Avery through to his bedroom. He didn't exactly have any clothes that a five year old could wear, so after he gave her a quick wash, he dressed her in one of his t-shirts that was more like a night shirt on her. He then let her sleep on his bed, while he changed his own clothes, worrying about what his son had done with the device.

* * *

"See Aunt Sara, so you can't tell my Mom, because she'll kill me." Ethan finished explaining what was going on to the confused woman, while Catherine sat back against the lockers, holding a cold wash cloth to the bump beginning to form on her head. "Tell her, Aunt Catherine!" The little girl looked towards, Ethan against the lockers, giving him a glare.

Catherine didn't want to admit what she had tried to do, so she shook her head at Sara, knowing she wouldn't believe a word of it anyway. After all, Sara wasn't exactly the kind of woman who believed in make believe fairytales.

"I don't know what she's talking about... Aunt Sara." She tried to sound as much like Ethan as she could, which wasn't that hard to do as she now had his voice. "This is... my cousin... Mmm... Mel... Melanie." She pointed to the little girl, giving Sara the cuckoo signal as she pointed to the child. "She lets her imagination run wild with her. Aunt Catherine said that she's going home to see her daughter, Lindsey."

"Don't believe anything she says." The little girl known as, Melanie protested, forgetting about the towel that was covering her, causing it to slip from her waist and fall to the floor.

Sara was beginning to believe that this little girl was nuts, but then she caught sight of the red lace bra beneath the blouse that only a woman like Catherine would wear. "Um... why don't I go and get your mother... Ethan." She looked at Nick's son beside her, as he was the only one in the room she recognised.

"Wait, Aunt Sara!" The little girl suddenly grabbed her hand, keeping her in the room. "Please, it's me, Ethan. I don't even have a cousin called, Melanie."

"See, she's crazy." Catherine continued with the act.

"I'll go get you mother." She didn't want to take sides, as they were both starting to sound a little crazy. She made her way towards the door behind her, scratching at her hand where the child had touched her. She didn't know what the strange feeling was in her hand, but it wasn't there before.

"What the hell did you tell her all that for?" Catherine hissed at Nick's child, throwing the cold wash cloth from her hands onto the floor. "I told you that I don't want any of them to know. We just have to wait for that stupid device to get some more juice, before we zap me back to normal and forget that any of this ever happened."

"I want my Daddy." Ethan lifted the towel from around his ankles, wrapping it around his shoulders this time as he started to feel cold. "You're mean, Aunt Catherine!"

"Hey, I am not!" Catherine protested, trying to stop Ethan from getting away, but he was already out the door. He felt embarrassed running through the hall half naked, especially because he was wearing a bra, but he wanted to find his mother. "Ethan!" The woman in his body grabbed the device off the bench, not daring to leave that behind, before she hurried out after him.

"There you are!" Penny hurried towards her son, snatching up the device from his hands. "I told you not to play with this thing. I'm glad to see that you haven't had a chance to use it yet." She stuffed it into her purse, dragging her son towards the elevator. "C'mon, we've got to get home. Your father's found your sister and my Dad really needs his diaper changed."

Catherine tried to protest, but the woman was very strong. She may have been strong against a five year old girl, but she was no match for a mother.

Penny buckled her father's car seat into the back of the car, making sure that Ethan was strapped in, before she started the car. She was about to reverse out of her spot, when she spotted Sara hurrying towards her.

"Wait... wait..." The very pregnant woman panted, jogging towards the open window of Penny's car. She looked in the back of the car, seeing that Penny only had Ethan in the back. "Aren't you forgetting, Melanie?"

"Who?" Penny looked at Sara confused.

"Melanie." She said the name again, but the name didn't ring any bells for the woman. "Ethan said she was his cousin. They were in the locker room together."

Penny glanced over her shoulder at her son, watching him giving her a confused look too. Catherine realised that if they brought Ethan along with them, he'd blab the whole thing to his gullible parents and she'd be the laughing stock of the lab.

"Sorry Sara, we don't know anyone by that name. Do you mind? We really have to get back." Penny shooed her away from the car, giving her son another look, before she proceeded to reverse out of her spot, eager to get back to Nick's to see her baby girl again.

* * *

"Mom. Mommy!" Ethan wandered around the halls of the lab, entering a section of the lab he had never been in before. He knew the break room wasn't this way, but he was curious to know where the music he could hear was coming from. It sounded like some kind of country music, sort of like the stuff his father listened to, only it sounded much older. He followed the sound into a wide open room, seeing some weird silver tables all over the room, along with various pieces of surgical equipment scattered throughout the room.

He saw an old guy leaning on crutches beside one of the tables, singing along to the loud country music, while he peeled back a plastic sheet from something on the table.

Ethan nervously took a step closer, curious to know what he was doing. His father had never told him that they had doctors working in this place, making him wonder if his father had been lying to him about certain aspects of his job.

Bravely taking another step, he slowly lifted his bare foot from the ground, anxiously biting his lower lip as it stuck to the floor, making a slight sucking sound. The old man didn't seem to notice though, so he took another step, finally close enough to see what he was doing.

But he wished that he wasn't.

The man was removing plastic from around a naked man on the table, who didn't appear to be moving. The crazed looking surgeon pushed his spectacles up his nose slightly, peeling back another layer of a strange looking material.

Ethan began to feel a little queasy, realising that what the old man had opened was the sleeping man's chest as it was skin coloured. He covered his hand over his mouth to keep himself from screaming; slowly backing away towards the door that he came in through.

As he reached the door though, a second man in blue scrubs with blood splashed down his front walked in, holding a small electrical saw in hands that was covered in blood too.

Ethan immediately let out a deafening scream, alerting both the men in the room of his presence.

The older guy reached for his very old fashioned radio, turning the music off, filling the room with the little girl's high pitched screams. "Hey, hey..." He put his hands in his crutches, hobbling his way over to her. He turned her head away from David, glaring at the man for just standing there like an idiot. "Get out of here, David." He shooed his assistant away, while he tried to calm the child down. He couldn't exactly pick her up or bend down to her level, but by turning her head away from the horrors that a child of her age shouldn't see, he already managed to calm her down a little.

Ethan really did feel like a little girl as he started to cry, but he probably would have cried if he was still himself too. He desperately wanted to find his mother now, hoping that she hadn't fallen for Catherine's tricks, as he didn't want to be left here alone.

The old man from the morgue eventually took him back up to the lab, only finding Greg left behind from the night shift crew. Ethan really didn't want to be left with him, but he didn't exactly have a choice.

"Nick doesn't have a niece called, Melanie." Greg protested, stopping Doc Robbins from getting back into the elevator. "Why do I get stuck with her? If Nick did have a niece, he certainly wouldn't leave her here on her own!" He shouted as the doors closed on the smug doctor. The younger man groaned in annoyance, reluctantly turning back towards the break room.

Ethan leant back in his seat, knowing Greg would never believe his story about what happened to him, and he didn't really want to tell him anyway, so he stuck with the story that Catherine had thought up, along with the stupid name that he hated.

"So, Melanie," Greg took a seat in front of her, placing his phone on the table between them. "If you're really Nick's niece, what's your surname?"

"Stokes."

The younger man nodded, figuring that was an easy one. "How old are you?"

Ethan looked down at himself, guessing, "Five... and three quarters." He added the essentials.

Greg noticed the hesitation in the child's voice though, making him suspicious. He slid the phone closer to the child, letting her take it to call him anyway. Nick would soon clear up the fact that he didn't have a five year old niece called Melanie; it was just a matter of time.

* * *

**Thanks a lot Janet1982 for your continued reviews. I hope the rest of you are enjoying it too.**

**Please let me know what you think!**

**~ Holly**


	6. Chapter 5: Everything's Changing

**Chapter Five: Everything's Changing**

Leaving Avery's side for the first time since he found her, Nick pulled a sweatshirt on over his bare chest, making his way towards the front door to let his ex in. "She's asleep in my bedroom." He pointed her through, playfully ruffling his hand through his son's hair as walked in. The child looked a little annoyed by the action, immediately brushing his fingers through his hair to straighten it out. Nick thought it was a bit odd as he had never done it before, but he took no notice as he saw that Penny's father was wide awake in the carry cot.

Penny carefully set it down on the floor, dropping her purse and car keys, before she hurried down the hall towards Nick's room. She eased the door open, finding a little girl lying on top of her ex's covers, with their daughter's woven baby blanket wrapped around her. She took a seat on the edge of his bed, gently brushing aside the child's hair from her face to take a closer look at her features. She smiled as she saw her baby still sucked her three of her fingers while she slept, making the same soft breathing sounds that she did before.

Nick leant against the doorframe watching her, feeling nervous as though he was afraid that she wouldn't accept their baby girl. After a few minutes of carefully studying her though, his ex leant against his pillow on her elbow, gently brushing a fingertip across her daughter's cheek. She pressed her lips to her forehead, feeling a little confused as her baby girl was now five years old, but she knew that she was hers.

She could feel it the second she laid eyes on her.

Nick left her alone for the moment, returning to the front room to attend to the other baby in their lives. He knew that Penny would feel a bit odd about changing her own father's diaper, so he decided to do it himself, not wanting the smell to stink out his house. "You're quiet." He glanced up at his son crashed out on the sofa. "Everythin' okay, kiddo?"

Catherine gulped hard, hoping Nick wouldn't be able to tell that it was her. She wasn't exactly sure how a father/son relationship worked, especially one with Nick. She still had a hard time picturing him as a parent at all, especially as hers.

"What's up?" He set Eldon back into the baby carrier, strapping him in so he didn't start crawling around. Nick made his way over to his son, taking a knee in front of him. "I'm not mad at you. I know that none of this was your fault... it's his." He pointed to the baby in the carrier. "He shouldn't have given you that stupid thing. The second we get your sister and him back to normal, we're destroyin' that thing."

"No!" Catherine shrieked, realising that if that happened; she'd be stuck as a boy for the rest of her life.

"What?" Nick gave his son a confused look. "It's dangerous, Ethan. We can't keep somethin' like that around."

"But . . . I just . . ." She breathed in deep breaths, thinking now was the perfect time to confess, but he'd probably just laugh at her. She couldn't face the humiliation, so she just said, "You can't destroy it... Dad. Please!" She begged him, hoping he wouldn't sense that something was up with her.

Nick was about to explain why it was so dangerous to him, when his cell started to ring. He climbed to his feet, grabbing it from the counter where he left it. He bit his lower lip as he saw that it was Greg, remembering he still had the younger man's car, so he probably wanted a ride home. "Greg... I'm sorry," Nick made his way into the spare bedroom, closing the door behind him. "I can bring your car back now if you..."

"_Daddy."_ Ethan said into the phone, making Greg look up at the child confused. He knew that Nick had only the two kids, and one of them certainly wasn't a five year old girl with long red hair.

"Who is this?" Nick took a seat on the edge of the spare bed, holding the phone closer against his ear.

Ethan looked at Greg sat in front of him, quietly answering, "_Ethan. Daddy, Aunt Catherine used the device on herself to make her younger. When I tried to take it back, we switched. Mommy took her home, not me."_

As crazy as the story sounded, it actually made sense to Nick. "Ethan?"

"_It's me, Daddy."_ He smiled into the phone, hoping he really believed him. "_Daddy I'm scared, can you come get me?"_

Nick listened to the scared child's voice, anxiously running his fingertips through his hair for the third time today. He tried to think of a way that he could prove that this was his child and not the one on the sofa in his front room.

But his son was well ahead of him.

"_Pancho."_ He remembered the familiar nickname, holding the phone closer against his ear. "_Your Daddy used to call you Pancho when you were a kid, after the TV show you watched together. When I'm scared, you always call me, Pancho. Daddy please, come get me. I don't like it here."_

Nick smiled, realising that was all the evidence he needed. Not even Penny knew that, it was something just between him and his son. "Okay... um... you at the lab with Greg?" He guessed, hearing a faint reply in response. "I'll be there as soon as I can, darlin'. Sit tight." He snapped his phone shut, slowly making his way across the hall to his own room. "I've just gotta go out for a sec." He spoke softly, seeing that Penny was still awake, watching their little girl sleeping.

"Where are you going?" She gave him a confused look.

Nick perched himself on the edge of the bed, tucking the baby blanket over his baby girl's back. "Apparently Catherine found the device at the lab, and she managed to switch with Ethan. He's still there now. Can you keep an eye on... him," He motioned towards the hall. "Make sure she doesn't go anywhere."

Penny sat up straight, giving him an even more confused look. "That's not Ethan?" She smiled slightly at the thought of Catherine trapped in their son's body, but then she realised what it meant. "Ethan's in her body though. Oh my god, is he okay?"

"He just called me." He tapped his cell in his hands. "He sounded like a child. I'm gonna go get him and bring him back. He sounded a little shaken up, but Greg's there with him." He checked the time on his watch, realising they had an hour left before they could change Penny's father back and sort this mess out. "I won't be long." He pulled some socks on, pressing a kiss to Avery's forehead, before he made his way out of the room.

Catherine didn't know what his phone conversation was about, but she knew something was up as Nick pulled some sneakers on, getting ready to go out. "Where are you going... Dad?" She cringed at the sound of the word again, beginning to feel like a pervert or something for calling a man that was younger than her, Dad.

"I am goin' to get my son, Ethan." He grinned at Catherine, seeing the surprised look on her face. "You better get to bed, kiddo." He winked at her, grabbing his keys off the side. "I won't be long."

"You know?" She jumped off the sofa, hurrying towards him before he got out the door. "One phone conversation and you suddenly believe that I'm not your son? What are you like the most gullible man on earth?"

"No, I just know my son." He playfully tapped the child on the head. "See yah, Cath." He winked again, knowing she couldn't protest against the nickname this time, as she was just a child. He hurried out the door to Greg's car, wondering exactly how young, Catherine decided to make herself.

When he arrived at the lab, Greg greeted him at the elevator, noticing that the older man was only wearing track suit bottoms and a sweatshirt, as he could see a patch of his bare abs as the man handed him his car keys. "Thanks... she's in the break room." Greg led him down the hall. "How long exactly have you had a daughter with an identity disorder?"

"Huh?" Nick gave him a confused look.

"She told me her name was Melanie, then on the phone she said that she was your son, Ethan. For the record, she looks nothing like you, so I'm guessing that she's your adopted daughter that you decided not to tell me about, since she's a little crazy. Is this the reason why you and your wife broke up? Couldn't hold down the marriage with a child like that?"

"Ex wife." Nick smiled at him, realising how crazy it sounded. "It's... it's a really long story, G. At this point in my life, no one is who they say they are at the moment." He stepped into the break room, looking towards the sofa where the small child was sleeping. He realised that Greg was right about the adoption thing, as this little girl looked nothing like him. She had a very pale complexion, a few freckles across her cheeks and vibrant red hair.

It was more obvious to him now what Catherine had tried to do. She had tried to make herself a few years younger, but she didn't understand how the device worked, turning herself into a little girl instead.

"Pancho." Nick whispered to the child, watching one of her eyes fluttering open, revealing a crystal clear blue eye. Another shock to him, as both his children had dark brown eyes like him.

"Daddy." The child murmured, immediately falling asleep again after the exhausting day.

His father took a moment to look at what the child was wearing, before he proceeded to lift him from the sofa into his arms. She wasn't as heavy as his son, Ethan was, but she was definitely bigger than Avery at the moment. "You want me to drive you?" Greg suggested, holding the door open for him. "Maybe on the way you can explain to me exactly what's going on. She's not yours is she?"

"No." He confessed, adjusting the towel around the child's body. "She's not mine. The person inside is though." Nick smiled at his confused boyfriend, realising he was going to need a lot more information than that. "Okay, do you believe in out of body experiences?" He asked him, getting started on trying to explain what was going on, as they made their way towards the elevators.

"Um... yeah, I guess."

* * *

After being laughed at by her friend's ex wife, Catherine made her way to Ethan's room, taking a look around. His desk was cluttered with model airplanes, toy cars and a few small building blocks that hadn't been used on the large castle tower stood on one of the shelves. She took a seat at his desk chair, realising for the first time, just how different boys were from girls.

She only had a daughter herself, and she never exactly had the chance to grow up with a brother, so it was quite a surprise to her.

At nine, her daughter was already experimenting with makeup. She still had a few dolls and things, but they were never really played with. Ethan's room appeared to be full of toys that he still played with though, especially the action figures that were scattered across the floor. He appeared to have made an army base on one side of the room, with all the little army figures lined up on the edge of a foot stool, overlooking an Indian base camp.

She knelt down to take a closer look, seeing that the Indian base camp had a few farm animals inside. The chickens were gathered outside one of the tents, with a very large duck stood in the centre of them. She guessed that these toys weren't from the same set, as the duck was taller than the Indian leader, complete with coat made from a wild bear.

She was pretty impressed with the detail, especially the scars that the Indian had carved into his chest, probably from the bear fight that earned him his coat. She explored the rest of the camp with her eyes, seeing some cows, horses and pigs over the other side, with a fierce looking dog watching over them.

She picked up the dog to take a closer look, shivering slightly as she saw his angry red eyes, tightly clenched jaws, revealing all his vicious teeth and the spiky mangy looking fur made of plastic. It gave her the chills, but the toys themselves actually looked quite interesting.

Catherine didn't know what was happening to her, but a part of her desperately wanted to play with the cool looking toys that were scattered across the floor. She knew she couldn't though; she was a forty six year old woman.

"What's happening to me?" She asked herself, noticing her reflection in the television screen. She didn't look anything like herself anymore. There wasn't even a trace of the old Catherine, making her fear that she was really turning into a little boy on the inside too.

As she climbed to her feet, she heard the front door opening, realising it was probably Nick home with the real, Ethan. She decided to go out and see if he was okay, still feeling guilty about ditching the child at the lab. She didn't do it intentionally; she just didn't want to get found out.

"There she is." Nick pointed to her as soon as she entered the room, making the younger man beside him snigger slightly. "You were cute as a kid, Cath." He smiled at her, setting the little girl from his arms onto the sofa for now.

"Wow." Greg took a step closer towards Nick's son, finding it hard to believe that Catherine was really in there. "This is why we were looking for a five year old and not your baby, because she's grown up?" He looked round at Nick again, who was undressing his real son from the ladies blouse and the red lace bra, so he could sleep comfortably.

"Yep. Avery is still a one year old in mind, but a five year old in body. It's amazin' how she's even managed to walk or anythin'." Nick playfully flung the lace bra in, Catherine's direction, making her scowl at him angrily. "What's more amazin' is the fact that you and Ethan actually managed to switch places." He lifted his child from the sofa again, adjusting the large towel that was only covering him now. "I'm gonna go put him to bed, be back in a sec."

"Okay." Greg dropped his keys onto the kitchen counter, taking a seat on one of the stools. He watched, Nick carrying his child towards the room down the hall, wondering how he was managing to keep a level head during all of this. "You alright in there, Catherine?" He looked across the room at her, giving her a smile as she frowned at him. "So, what's it like to be a nine year old boy?"

"Leave me alone." She dropped to the sofa, folding her arms across her chest. "This is so unfair."

In his son's bedroom, Nick dressed his son in a pair of his old pyjamas, attempting to make him more comfortable. He kept all his son's old clothes in a box in the wardrobe just in case, but he never thought that he'd be using them like this.

Once the little girl was dressed in the pair of boy's pyjamas, Nick tucked him into his bed. He pressed a kiss to his forehead, wishing that his life would return to normal. He didn't like this new world he found himself in that made his children feel vulnerable and alone. But he realised that it was him who started all this by neglecting to spend time with his own son.

"Here it is." Nick returned to Greg in the kitchen, showing him the device. "Just please... don't touch anythin'." He smiled at him, before he turned to look at Catherine on the sofa. "You should go to bed too. Not an option." He warned her, sensing she was going to argue about it. "You can find some of Ethan's pyjamas in the bottom drawer of his dresser. We should have this whole thing sorted out by the mornin'."

"Where am I supposed to sleep?" She climbed off the sofa.

"Ethan's couch is a pull out. I already opened it for you." Nick waved her off, smiling as she reluctantly made her way down the hall towards Ethan's room. "Man I can't wait for all this to be over." He looked back at Greg, who was carefully examining the device in his hands. "You recon you could turn my father in law back into a fifty year old with that?" He motioned towards the sleeping baby on the floor.

Greg gave him a shrug, carefully studying each of the dials. "I'm guessing that Catherine hit this button." He pointed to the dial that was set on five, while the others were still at zero. "If your father in law still has his mind," He looked at the baby in the carrier. "Couldn't you just ask him which one we use to change him back? The dials go all the way round to a hundred, so we just have to ask him which one we use to age him back... or forward even."

"He's a one year old." Nick pointed out to him, finally kicking his sneakers off now that he was home. "How exactly do you go about askin' a one year old a complicated question like that?"

"There's other ways of communication." The younger man smiled at him. "Blinking, clapping his hands or gurgling. We just have to tell him what to do for a yes or a no... when he's awake, obviously. I should leave you guys to sleep." He set the device down on the counter, grabbing his keys to head home.

"Greg eh... you could... stay here." Nick stopped him from leaving, trying not to sound too needy.

Smiling as he heard the nervousness in his boyfriend's voice, Greg reminded him, "Catherine's here though. One of the main people that we were hiding our relationship from. Your ex is here too, one of the other people we were hiding our relationship from. And your children. I want to... but I can't stay with you, Nicky."

"I want you to though. You're the only normal thing left in my life."

"Once we get this mess sorted out, I'll be with you all you like." Greg wrapped his arms around the vulnerable man's shoulders, resting their heads together as he looked into his partner's eyes. "I completely respect your wishes to keep our relationship a secret for the sake of work and your kids, which is why I'm gonna go. You don't want Catherine to find out like this. Remember how heartbroken she was when we found out about Grissom and Sara." He pressed their lips together, gently easing his tongue into the gorgeous Texan's mouth. He felt tingles running through his body as their tongues merged together in their mouths, gently dancing around each other.

"Thanks, G." Nick whispered as they pulled apart. Placing his hands on Greg's hips, he pulled him closer a moment to hug him, breathing in his familiar tantalizing scent. "I love knowin' that you're always there to support me. I've never had that before."

"It's what boyfriend's are for, right? Or so I've read." The younger man giggled softly.

Giving him a smile, Nick whispered, "Thanks for lookin' after my baby at the lab too."

"About that," Greg remembered he had forgotten to tell him something, especially after he got engrossed in the fairytale like story of what's been happening in Nick's life. "We only found him because he somehow managed to wander into the morgue. Doctor Robbins was in the middle of an autopsy at the time, so you might wonna talk to him about that when he wakes up. He was pretty shaken up."

Nick sighed softly, releasing his hold on his boyfriend. "Take my advice G; never become a father without some serious thought. Its great most of the time, but you always end up screwin' yah kids up one way or another."

"You haven't screwed them up." The younger man assured him, stealing another quick kiss from his lips. "You're a great father and an amazing person all round. If I could, I'd spend the rest of my life with you."

"Is that a proposal?" The Texan smiled.

"Nope." He quickly shook his head, swearing he saw some disappointment in Nick's eyes. "Not that I don't want to or anything like that. It's just... really not the right time for anything like that. Anyway, call me in the morning. I'll be over as soon as." He made a quick escape for the door, before he said something else that he'd later regret.

"Okay. Bye, Greg." Nick opened the door for him, waving his partner off. He waited until he could no longer see his car, before he locked the front door, triple checking that the house was secure. He knew now that Avery hadn't been kidnapped from his house, but he just wanted to be sure that it was safe.

Before he went to bed himself, he put Eldon in Avery's crib so he was more comfortable. He checked that Catherine had gone to bed too, smiling as he saw that she was out like a light. On route to the spare bedroom, he poked his head through the door to his own room, checking on his baby girl and ex wife.

Avery was huddled close to her mother, wheezing softly in her sleep. He was relieved that the events of the day hadn't traumatised her too much, hoping that they really could get her back to normal tomorrow.

* * *

Returning home after a long conference, the only thing that Gil Grissom could think about was sleeping. He set his brand new briefcase his mother had bought him onto the side table, placing his car keys beside it, so he wouldn't be frantically searching the house for them in the morning. "Sara?" He called through the house for his wife, greeting his dog, Hank with a gentle stroke to the head. "Sara!"

"Doggy, doggy... where you go?" His wife crawled on her hands and knees into the room, clapping her hands together in excitement as she saw the dog she had been playing with. Her large pregnant stomach scrapped across the floor as she scrambled after the dog, but the woman didn't seem to care.

"Sara?" Grissom cocked an eyebrow at her, wondering what on earth she was doing. He thought that maybe the stresses of the lab had finally got to her, but where were the warning signs. "Sara." He knelt down to her level, watching as the smiling woman stroked the dog in front of her. "Sara, do you know who I am?"

"Mr Gissop." She clapped her hands together, giving him a wide smile as she looked up at him. "You go play with me? Where my Mommy?"

Grissom widened his eyes, wondering what was wrong with her. He thought that maybe he should call her a doctor or something, but he didn't want to worry the man at two in the morning. They had already called him enough times, asking him about her pregnancy; from a high temperature, back pain, frequent urination and tingles in her legs.

He didn't feel the need to bother him again.

"Sara." He brushed her hair back from her face. "Sara, it's me, Gil." When she continued with her childish behaviour, he realised that her mind had turned to mush. He cradled her against his chest, fearing he had lost her for good. "I love you, Sara."

* * *

**Thanks for reading, please review!**

**~ Holly**


	7. Chapter 6: The Source

**Chapter Six: The Source**

When Nick woke up the next morning, it took him a moment to realise that he was in his guest bedroom, and not his own room. He adjusted himself on the uncomfortable bed, immediately widening his eyes as he saw two kids stood beside his bed, waiting for him to get up. "What?" He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, blinking them a few times before he realised who they were.

"You sleep forever." The woman in his son's body glared at him, dressed in a pair of Ethan's jeans and a smart short sleeved shirt, a combination his son would never wear. His own son preferred his scruffy jeans or combat shorts, with t-shirts. He hated wearing shirts or any kind of smart clothing. "Can we hurry up and get on with this changing back thing now?"

"Yeah." Nick struggled to a sitting position, giving out a wide yawn. "Are you okay?" He looked at his real son, still trapped in the body of a little girl.

"Who cares how he's doing, this is normal for him. How about worrying about me here, Nicky," Catherine complained, having just had to get dressed in little boy's clothes. The most embarrassing part had to be when she had to go to the bathroom though. She thought that going to the toilet as a boy would be less hassle, but boy was she wrong. "Can you hurry up and get up, so we get this Eldon guy back to normal, along with the rest of us? I have a life, you know. I don't have time to play happy families."

Blocking Catherine out, Nick realised just how quiet the other child was, making him more concerned. "Eth... I mean Catherine," He looked at his son. "Can you give us a minute?" Catherine gave out an annoyed huff, before she stormed out of the room, even more annoyed with Nick. "Are you okay, darlin'?" He looked into the other child's eyes, waiting for an answer.

Ethan remained silent though, feeling embarrassed by the way he looked and the sound of his girlish voice. He hadn't got dressed yet, so he was still dressed in his own huge pyjamas that his father dressed him in last night.

"C'mere," Nick slid his hands beneath the smaller child's arms, lifting her onto the bed with him. He brushed her long red hair aside from her face, looking into her vulnerable little eyes, knowing his son was on the other side of them. "I know that none of this is your fault. You know that too, don't you?" He lifted his son's chin, making him look him in the eye.

"Aunt Catherine's really mean." He finally spoke. "She says this is _all_ my fault."

"You shouldn't take any notice of her; she's just... stressed out." Nick clutched the child closer, pressing his lips to her forehead. "Your Granddad shouldn't have given you that device in the first place, it's dangerous. Look at what it's done to our lives in only a day. We'll get you back to normal though, I can promise you that." He smiled softly, brushing back the long red hair from his face. "You really turned yourself into your baby sister, just to spend some time with me?"

Ethan gave him a guilty nod, "But Daddy..."

"That just proves that this isn't your fault. It's mine for not bein' there for you." He assured him, placing one hand on the child's back as he examined his smaller fingers. "I'll always love you, no matter what you do. I've never stopped lovin' you, since the first moment I held you in my arms."

His son giggled softly, holding onto his father's fingers between his own little hands. "I know, you tell me all the time. But I don't want you to love me like this. I don't wonna be a girl."

"Doesn't mean I can't love you." He lifted his son closer, assuring him that he would get him back to normal. He felt completely helpless to help his child at the moment, feeling as though he had failed as a father for failing to protect his children.

"Can you keep Aunt Catherine as a child for a little longer to punish her?" Ethan smiled up at his father. "Mommy said she deserves it for leaving me behind."

"I wish, she knows how to get her own back though." Nick moved towards the edge of the bed, lifting Ethan as he climbed to his feet. He had always wanted a large family with lots of kids, and as he walked into the kitchen, he realised that somehow he had got it.

Penny was sitting at the head of the table, with their new five year old daughter, Avery sat on her lap. She was drinking milk from a bottle this time, but she was still just a baby. Ethan looked at his little sister Avery, realising that they were now the same size. If his hair wasn't so red, they could have been sisters.

Eldon, Penny's father was in Avery's high chair, grimacing as his daughter fed him another mouthful of pureed vegetables. He would have preferred some proper food, but his baby digestive system wouldn't be able to handle it. He couldn't even chew most of his food, from the lack of teeth in his baby gums.

Catherine was sat the other side of the table, resting against her elbow on the table as she looked down at the horrible bowl of oatmeal sat in front of her. She usually skipped breakfast as an adult, but her younger stomach was groaning in protect, desperately wanting some food inside of it.

"Do you want some oatmeal, Ethan?" Penny looked up as Nick walked in, obviously aware of the fact that the newest little girl in their house was their son. Without waiting for an answer, she served him up a bowl, setting it down next to the spare seat for him.

Nick helped his son into his seat, giving Penny a smile as she adjusted the bottle in Avery's mouth. "I'm gonna go for my run." He announced, taking his cell with him.

"So we get changed back as soon as you've been for a run?" Catherine glared up at him, pushing her own bowl of oatmeal away from her. "I have things to do today, Nick."

"They can wait." He pulled his sneakers on, grabbing his keys to the door on the way out. He wasn't planning on going for a long run; he just needed to clear his head.

"Dick." She muttered under her breath, getting glared at by Penny at the head of the table. "What? This is so typical of him and completely insensitive. Lindsey's been with my mother all night. She has no idea where I am or why I haven't come home. Meanwhile, I'm stuck here, playing happy families with you lot and it sucks."

"You can go to your room." Penny humiliated her further. "Now!"

Catherine slid off her seat, reluctantly doing as she asked. The sound of a grown up shouting at her was actually pretty terrifying. She felt scared to defy the woman's wishes, for fear of what she might do. "Seriously, what is happening to me?" She asked herself again, dropping onto the sofa bed where she had slept last night, with tears in her eyes.

* * *

Nick's run sent him jogging in the direction of his boyfriend's apartment. He stretched out before he hit the buzzer, getting buzzed straight through as soon as Greg heard his voice. He took the stairs up two at a time, using his spare key to let himself into the younger man's apartment.

"Good Morning." Greg held out a coffee to him, stabilising himself against the counter as Nick lunged forwards to wrap his arms around him. "You're all sticky." He placed his hand on the older man's sweaty back, realising he must have run all the way here. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah." He lay his head against Greg's shoulder, whispering, "Remember when you said if I ever needed you... for anythin', no matter what."

"Yeah." The younger man set the coffee from his hands down, wrapping both his arms around the man's shoulders. "Why?"

"I need you right now." He closed his eyes, listening to the other man's delicate breathing. "I had to get out the house. I just had a horrible thought."

Greg was waiting for him to explain what was wrong, when he suddenly felt a warm drop of water rolling down the side of his neck, towards the collar of his t-shirt. Nick thought he would be a burden to him by going to him when he needed help, but Greg had been begging him to be more open with him for years.

"Shh, I'm here, Nicky." He clutched him tighter, gently placing his hand on the back of his head, brushing his fingers through his hair. "It's okay."

"It's not okay." Nick wiped his eyes, sniffling against his partner's shoulder. "My kids are trapped somewhere they don't belong, and I'm cryin' because I'm a terrible father. I'm such an idiot."

"Aww, don't be so hard on yourself." The younger man shivered as Nick's hands found their way towards his hips. "You're not an idiot. You've been holding things together so far. Considering the situation, you're handling it really well. Most people would be tearing their hair out by now."

"I'm losin' my hair as it is."

"It's a widow's peak; I think it's very attractive." He gave him a grin, playfully ruffling his hand through his soft hair. "Just as long as you don't grow that moustache back, you'll always be attractive to me."

Nick chuckled softly, whispering, "Good to know." He wiped the tear streaks from his face, realising he had been crushing Greg against the counter behind him. "I think after this I really need a vacation."

Greg smiled back at him, brushing away a tear that Nick missed with his thumb. "You haven't stopped working since, Warrick. I've been telling you for months that you need to take some time off. My Dad still has that boat of his. I'm a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure I remember how to drive that thing. I could take you out on it for a couple of days."

"That is exactly what I need right now." Nick pressed his lips to Greg's, gently sliding his hands beneath his boyfriend's pyjama top. "I gotta think about my kids right now though. Speakin' of, I should really get back. Catherine's already pretty pissed. They should have all finished up with their breakfast by now. You wonna come along? I could use your help with the device that started all of this."

"I'd be offended if you didn't include me." He sealed a kiss over the Texan's lips, before he indicated towards his pyjamas that he was still wearing. "Let me go get dressed. I'll be back in a minute."

* * *

After making a few last minute adjustments, Greg looked round at Penny and Nick who were stood behind him, before he pointed the device in the direction of the baby sat on the floor in front of him. He felt a little stupid as he hadn't actually seen this device in action yet, but the baby had already started changing. His round little legs and his pudgy arms started to stretch, bringing him to around the height of a toddler.

He continued to grow, his face becoming a little thinner as he shot up like a weed, gradually losing his baby fat. When the strength returned to his legs, Eldon struggled to stand, growing right out of the baby grow and diaper that he was still wearing.

Greg watched in amazement, finally believing that this thing really worked, as the baby was now as tall as Avery, and still growing. He shot through puberty within another couple of seconds, forcing Penny to look away as her father grew out of childhood.

Nick handed the young teen the towel he had handy, watching as Eldon grew some facial hair, filled out on a few muscles across his body, slowly growing a little taller as each second slipped by. Not long after he stopped growing, his belly got a little chubbier. He started to lose those muscles he had in his teens and a widow's peak in his hairline appeared.

"It's about damn time." Eldon finally spoke, properly wrapping the towel around himself. He peered down to check that everything else was back, before he looked up at the three other people in the room. "Why'd you wait so long to change me back? I feel as though I've been stuck like that for hours."

"It was just the one night." Penny assured her father, stepping closer to check that he was really back to normal. "I don't think his hairs grey enough. How many years did you add on?"

"Forty." Nick told her, stopping her from grabbing the device from Greg's hands. "We don't need any more accidents around here. He's old enough to help us now, he can fix it himself later." He turned to look at the man in question. "Do you feel okay, Eldon? You're still... you know, you right?"

"Yeah." The man looked down at himself again, before he glared at the younger man in the room. "Who's that?"

"Greg Sanders." He introduced himself, going to shake the man's hand, but Eldon immediately looked away from him. "I've heard a lot about you, sir."

"Um hmm, so how much trouble exactly are we in here?" He looked up at their three worried faces, knowing something was wrong before they even opened their mouths. "Mind if I get some clothes on first?"

Penny reached for the pile of Nick's clothes she had got out for her father, placing them in the man's hands. "These should fit. Nick's slightly shorter than you, but he makes up for it in muscles, so they should fit yah." She pointed her father through to the spare bedroom, so he could get dressed before he fixed everyone else.

"You'd think he'd at least say thank you." Greg set the device down, folding his arms across his chest. "I could have lost my career if something else happened to him."

"Relax, G," Nick patted him on the shoulder, knowing he couldn't hug him in front of Penny. "He's probably just in a grouchy mood because he didn't get much sleep last night." He smirked, taking a seat on the arm of his sofa. He patiently waited for Eldon to return from the bedroom, wanting to get his kids back to normal, so he could get rid of the device that had destroyed their lives.

Eldon dressed himself in his ex son in law's clothes, feeling a little weird for wearing another man's clothes, but he was just relieved that he was back to normal size and no longer needing a diaper. He zipped up his fly, noticing that his hands were no longer small and pudgy. He had never actually used the device on himself before, especially not to do something like that, and he certainly didn't want to ever be that young again.

He hated feeling so vulnerable all the time; he couldn't wait to get his freedom back.

"Alright," He returned to the front room, where Nick was holding Avery in his arms. The one year old had adjusted well to her bigger body, but he knew that it wasn't right to keep her that way. She was still a baby in her mind, she just happened to be a very big one. "Let's get my granddaughter back to normal then." He grabbed the device from the counter, adjusting a few of the dials. He stopped as he noticed that the third one had been tampered with, worrying about who it had hit. "So eh... how many of you exactly used this while I was out?" He glanced around the room, trying to see any differences in the other people. He looked over his shoulder, spotting his grandson raising his hand slightly.

"Catherine," Nick explained, "Colleague from work, she tried to make herself younger, but she made herself into a kid. Ethan tried to get the device back from her . . . and they switched bodies. None of us have been affected by it though." Nick assured him, seeing the look of disappointment and worry on Eldon's face. "Why, what's wrong?"

"Ethan and Catherine switched, but one of them haven't changed back yet?" Eldon suddenly seemed even more nervous than he was before.

"No. Why, what's wrong with that? You can switch them back. I know you can. I've seen it happen before." Penny stepped in, seeing that familiar look of fear in her father's eyes. It was the same look he had when she told him that she had turned her cousin into a baby. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing..." He shook his head, adjusting the dial on top again. "It's just... usually the host who used the device only remains in the changed body for five hours. The other one is usually stored, but if they're both here and still different."

"We were both holding the device." Catherine informed him. "Does that mean that we're both the host?"

"Eh... well, let's get Avery changed back first." Eldon changed the subject, watching Nick carefully setting his baby girl onto the sofa beside him, so he wouldn't be affected by the device.

Eldon looked at his granddaughter a moment, before he pushed the button, regressing her back to the proper size. She didn't take long to shrink back, not even noticing that the world around her was getting bigger, as she was more concerned with the toy she had in her hands.

"She _is_ my baby!" Penny lifted the more familiar one year old out of her ex's t-shirt on the sofa, carefully checking her over to make sure that she was completely normal again. Her hair had returned to its normal length, her cheeks were full and round, even her arms had legs had shrunk, making her a perfectly proportioned baby again.

Nick joined her to look at her for himself, seeing the scar was in the same spot, even the mole behind her ear was in the same spot. She really was the same child, she had just returned to her normal size. He lifted his baby girl from his ex's arms, pressing his lips to her forehead as her curious little hands fiddled with a button on his shirt.

"Dada." Avery gurgled, completely unaware of the fact that she had changed in size.

Greg took a seat as he watched them together, feeling like an outsider as the only family he had was his mother. And they hadn't exactly been that close lately. He had no idea what it was like to bring a child into this world, but he was starting to feel envious of those around him that did have children, because they had actually accomplished something amazing with their lives.

"Right, next up... Ethan." Eldon declared, going to fetch his grandson. He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do about the body swap, as he didn't actually have a button for permanent body swaps.

Pointing the device at his grandson, who was supposedly Catherine from work, Eldon adjusted a few of the dials, trying to look busy so he could think. The dial on top could regress someone's age. The second one increased their age. But he had never figured out what the third dial could do. He knew that the machine could connect with the host's brain waves for when they wanted to switch bodies with someone, but it had only worked for five hours at a time.

Ethan and Catherine had been like this for longer than that though, and the last thing he wanted to do was push random buttons and make it worse. He lowered the device to his side, giving out a sigh. He didn't know how they even managed to switch or how he was supposed to reverse it, making him feel weak and helpless again.

"What's the problem?" Catherine climbed to her feet, giving the man a glare. "Can you change me back or not?"

"Give me a second," He turned away from her, bumping into the little girl that was supposedly his grandson. "I can't work under this kind of pressure. I'm doing the best I can." He took a seat at the table, opening up the back of the device to check on the circuits and things inside. All the wires appeared to be intact, and nothing had fried or burnt, meaning it was probably operating as normal.

"What's the problem?" Nick whispered, leaning on the table beside him.

"This... it's not... it's never switched people like this before. Of course it can switch people, Ethan managed it when he switched with Avery, but it only worked for five hours for the host, which was Ethan. Which is exactly what it's supposed to do, any longer than that..." He anxiously bit his lower lip, looking at the children across the room. "It's never done this before. It's usually just a temporary change... but this," He set the device on the table, anxiously running his fingers through his hair. "I can regress or progress their ages... transfer my mind into either one of them... but there isn't a button to switch their bodies permanently. The best I can give them is five hours."

Nick widened his eyes, realising what this meant. He took a seat beside his ex father in law, trying to remain calm. "This mind transfer, wouldn't that work on them?"

"Temporarily." The man nodded. "To keep them in their minds, you'd have to zap them every five hours... for the rest of their lives."

"How did they manage this then?"

"I don't know." He snapped, holding his head in his hands. "I wasn't here when it happened, so I don't know. I told you, this has never happened before. If it's been more than five hours since the change... there's nothing I can do. It usually just wears off and they return to their normal selves... or in Catherine's case, to her normal body that she's regressed. I can progress her age, but Ethan will still be in her head."

"So... they _could_ still change back?" Nick tried to stay positive, placing the device in Eldon's hands again. "Maybe this mind transfer will work on them, it worked this way before. You can't leave my son like this. You can't leave Catherine like this. There has to be another way. C'mon, you invented this thing..."

"Exactly, and I know what it fucking does, Nick! I'm telling you, this is impossible." He set it back on the table, alerting the children across the room as he raised his voice. Feeling the pressure building once again, Eldon escaped out the front door, leaving Nick to explain it to them.

Catherine could already tell that something was wrong, without Nick even opening his mouth. She hurried down the hall to Ethan's room, crashing onto the sofa bed where she had slept in tears. She wanted to be young again, but she certainly didn't want to start over as a nine year old boy.

Ethan remained put though, allowing his father to lift him into his arms.

"We can figure this out." Nick took a seat on the sofa with his child in his arms. "I told you, this thing just makes people stressed out. Granddad will be back as soon as he's cleared his head." He tried to assure himself more than he was his son, clutching the child close against his chest, as he didn't know of any other way to help him.

While his father held him tightly, Ethan realised that he was going to grow up as Catherine, while she was going to grow up as him. He didn't want to grow up as a girl, especially as Catherine. She wasn't exactly the nicest of people. His mother didn't even like the woman, meaning she'd start hating him as he was going to become her.

Ethan started to cry silently into his father's shoulder, picturing himself stuck as his Aunt Catherine for the rest of his life. He didn't even like her; he certainly didn't want to look like her. He squeezed his eyes closed against the man's chest, feeling his father clutching him tighter as he realised that he was crying.

Nick tried everything to calm him down, but he didn't have anything positive to tell him.

His son started to cry so hard that he eventually wore his five year old body out, sending him off to sleep. Nick brushed his thumb across the child's pale cheek, wiping away his son's tears. He wished that he could wipe away his problems just as easily, but nothing in their lives was going to be that simple anymore.

* * *

"Mr Gissop, where we going?" Sara called out from the back seat of his car, struggling with the uncomfortable seatbelt over her chest again. "I want my Mommy." She continued to pout, making Grissom more and more concerned about her deteriorating mind. He still wasn't sure what brought it on, or why it was progressing so quickly, but he had to get her to a doctor. There wasn't any time left to wait around and see what happened to her next, he had to save what was left of her, before it was too late.

Meanwhile, two floors up from Grissom and Sara's apartment, Lydia Thompson was just about to serve up some breakfast for her kids. She woke up her youngest first, three year old Lucy, who went down last night without a fuss. When she woke her up though, the child looked at her as though she had never seen her before.

"Help!" The child immediately screamed, looking up at the giant leaning over her. She covered her hand over her mouth as she realised how different her voice was, realising that there was something wrong with her too.

She had shrunk.

Her arms and legs were shorter. Her fingers were small and chubby, but her stomach was still huge, she just wasn't pregnant anymore. It poked out like a big balloon against the rim of her diaper. Then she realised that she was actually wearing a diaper and felt as though she was going to faint.

"What happened to me?" The toddler looked around confused, hoping she was dreaming as this was a nursery.

Lydia lifted the frightened toddler into her arms, cradling her securely against her breasts to comfort her. She only made her feel more alienated though, realising just how small she was as the woman she was pressed up against seemed to fit into this world better than her.

* * *

"Nick, can you watch her a sec?" Penny suddenly appeared, waking Nick from his sleep. He blinked his eyes open a few times, realising that he was still on the sofa with Ethan asleep against him. He looked up at his ex, seeing their normal sized baby in her arms. He adjusted his son, Ethan on his lap, before he reached out for his baby girl, sitting her against his chest.

"Where you goin'?" He rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

"I need to go home and get a change of clothes." Penny showed the man the baby vomit stain down her front. "Has Greg gone then?" She looked around for him.

He gave her a slight nod, wiping the dried tears from his eyes, making them feel dry and itchy. "Yeah. He went to work. Catherine's asleep, somethin's up with Sara and I can't go in, so it's just him and some of the swing shift pickin' up the slack."

"I can watch the kids if you wonna go in."

Nick shook his head, "Greg said if I even step foot in that place, he's gonna lock me up. He said I'd be mad to leave my family at a time like this."

Penny smiled, seeing the look in her ex's eyes as he talked about him. "You really like him, doncha? He's cute. Worth knowing I got dumped for a guy like that."

"I didn't dump you." He reminded her.

The woman nodded, feeling guilty again. "I did it _for_ you though. You weren't happy with me."

"I was." Nick corrected her, bringing up the past as he felt as though the present would have never happened if they had stayed together. "When you're a parent, you're supposed to put your children's happiness before your own. Just because I wasn't happy with the way I was around you, didn't mean I wasn't happy to be part of a family."

"It doesn't work with us though, Nicky. Whether you like it or not, me and you like very different things." She brushed her hand through his hair; giving the man she still adored a smile. "I know you crave what your brother and sisters have, but that doesn't mean you should sacrifice your own happiness to get it. I still love you, but I had to let you go because you can't love me the same way that I love you. And I'm happy that you've found someone, I don't resent him in anyway. Greg's a great guy, don't screw this one up."

Nick really didn't want to think about Greg right now, he thought that maybe he should tell Penny that their son was stuck like this, but he didn't want her to worry too. "Go getcha clothes." He playfully pushed her away from him, placing his hand on Avery's chest to stop her from falling off his lap as she found her feet.

Ever since she had changed back into a baby, she had been trying to walk again, probably wondering why she couldn't do it anymore. She still hadn't realised that she was smaller and her limbs were weaker, but that didn't stop her determination to try and stand again.

"Alright, take care of our babies." Penny pressed a kiss to her sleeping child's forehead, wondering why her father hadn't changed him back yet. She thought nothing of it, as Nick seemed pretty calm about it, so her father must have been working it out while her son slept.

Once her mother was gone, Avery struggled to turn in her father's arms, gripping his t-shirt tightly as she straightened her legs. She gurgled excitedly as she was now standing, making Nick smile at her proudly. "Such a clever little girl, aren't cha?" He pecked a kiss to her cheek, chuckling as she gave out a shriek of excitement. Feeling his phone vibrating against his hip, Nick lifted Ethan slightly to reach for it, surprised to see that Greg was calling him. "Hey, whatsup?"

"_Very, very bad."_ Greg answered, ducking into the layout room before Ecklie saw him. "_Nicky, you've gotta get, Eldon and that device thing over here. Doc Robbins and David are claiming that they switched bodies. Brass has switched with one of his deputies. The receptionist Judy, she's claiming that she's just a cleaner here. Ecklie called in a shrink and he wants to put them on a twenty four hour lock down in a mental hospital. And Grissom called in sick for Sara, saying she's lost her mind. When I asked him to be more specific, he said she's acting like a toddler. He told Ecklie too, now he thinks we're all crazy."_

"Oh." Nick leant forwards, supporting his little walker against his chest. "But they never used it. How could they have?"

"_I don't know, but they're doing a pretty good impression of pretending to be each other."_ Greg ducked below the table as Ecklie looked his way, not wanting to be spotted. "_They were all here last night when the device was here though. Ecklie wants us all to go in for a psych evaluation to make sure the rest of us aren't losing it."_

"Okay," He anxiously bit his lower lip, realising that practically the whole night shift crew had been affected by this thing now. "I'll be there as soon as I can. I'm on my own with the kids and I have no idea where Eldon went, but I'll find him. Are you okay, you sound different?"

"_I'm whispering."_ He pointed out to him, relieved that he was still himself. Not that it wouldn't be exciting to become someone else for a couple hours, but he was glad that he was still himself. "_Hurry, Nicky."_ He snapped the phone shut in his hands, glancing over his shoulder as the door opened.

"Are you hiding from me?" Ecklie folded his arms across his chest, looking at the younger man sat under the table. "I guess it's safe to say that you're losing it too. Any idea where the rest of your team are?"

Greg raised his hands like a suspect, climbing to his feet off the floor. "I know you'll never believe me, so there's no point in me explaining it to you, but you can't lock us up over this." He looked over the man's shoulder, watching them escorting Wendy and Hodges away, so they could be checked out. What he didn't tell Nick was that Ecklie had locked down the lab, thinking a toxic chemical had affected the minds of the night shift crew.

Ecklie stepped aside, allowing the deputies to enter the room.

"You can't do this." Greg protested, wincing as the guys forced him against the table, so they could cuff his hands behind his back. "This is ridiculous."

* * *

As soon as Eldon returned, Nick told him everything that had happened at the lab, demanding to know some answers. The older man didn't have any though, as nothing like this had ever happened before. "They didn't even use the device though, how is this even possible?" Nick continued to ask, while Eldon triple checked the wiring in the back of the device. "The only thing that any of them have in common... is the fact they were workin' the night shift last night." He looked over his shoulder at his sleeping son, feeling tingles running up his spine. "And Ethan. They all came into contact with Ethan. Sara was with him in the locker room. Doc Robbins and David were in the morgue with him. He saw Judy and Brass... it's Ethan." He figured it out for himself.

"What do you mean its Ethan?"

"You said the device has never done anythin' like this before, but it connects to brain waves of the host or whatever, right?" Nick watched his ex father in law giving him a slight nod, before he continued, "When Ethan touched it, he and Catherine switched bodies. Now everyone that Ethan has come into contact with has switched... except me..."

"That just disproves your theory then." Eldon pointed out to him. "But..." He thought about it a moment. "There was something like that before. When I first made the device, we tested it on a few subjects. Animals at first. One of the subjects was a monkey, when he displayed traits of fear, one of the other animals started to act like him. We didn't think anything of it at the time..."

"You tested this thing on animals?" Nick stopped him there.

"Don't change the subject." Eldon closed up the device, flipping it over in his hands. "It wasn't like this then; it was a big computer before. When we tried it on our first human test subject, one of our scientists transferred his mind into a coma patient. He got scared when he couldn't get back, and he managed to transfer himself back into his own mind."

"This is relevant how?"

Eldon rolled his eyes at the man. "Fear. This device, it doesn't only act on what a person wants, it acts on fear too. If your son is still connected to this, when he experiences fear... it's going to act on that emotion."

Tired of the lecture, Nick demanded to know, "Can you fix it or not?"

He shook his head, "Just because we figured out what might be causing it, doesn't change the fact that I don't have a button to do that." The man snapped, setting the device down again. "At the moment... all we know is that Ethan is the catalyst for this. Anyone he touches is probably going to switch with the next person they come into contact with... we should get him to my lab."

"No, you're not takin' my son anywhere."

"Nick, I'm fully aware of that natural instinct to protect your child, but he's the source. I need to get him to the lab to monitor what's going on in that head of his. If I can read the waves from his brain to this," He lifted the device from the table. "I might be able to reverse them and get everyone back to their normal bodies. I won't hurt him, I swear. He's my own flesh and blood; I wouldn't let anything happen to him."

Nick wanted to help all the other people that had been affected by this, but he had to protect his son too. Protecting him didn't involve taking him to a lab to be experimented on, so he shook his head. "No, you're not takin' him. You'll have to find another way."

* * *

**Thanks for reading, please review!**

**~ Holly**


	8. Chapter 7: Don't know the half of it

**Chapter Seven: Don't know the half of it**

After making sure that Nick was still preoccupied with Avery in the bedroom, Eldon slowly made his way back towards the front room, where his grandson was still sleeping. Sliding his hands beneath the sleeping child's arms, he carefully lifted him from the sofa. He lifted him higher so he could hold him securely against his chest. "I'm sorry." He whispered to the child, double checking that Nick wasn't around, before he crept out of the house with him towards his car.

Whether Nick liked it or not, Ethan was their only chance at getting everyone back to normal. Eldon felt responsible as he was the one who made the device, so he had to do something about it, regardless of who was involved.

He strapped the child into the back of his car, anxiously biting his lower lip as Ethan started to flutter open his blue eyes. "Shh kiddo," His Grandfather whispered to him, adjusting the seatbelt strap over his shoulder. "We're just going for a little ride. Go back to sleep."

Ethan's eyelids fluttered closed again, completely oblivious to the fact that he was being taken away.

"There we go. All done."

When Nick finished changing Avery's diaper, he carried her back towards the front room, immediately noticing that his son was missing. He set the baby into her travel cot, quickly searching the house to see if Ethan had woken up and gone to the bathroom or something. He ran back towards the kitchen as only Catherine was in the house with him, realising that the device was gone too.

"Damn it, Eldon." He overheard a car pulling away. He hurried for the door, but as soon as he got outside the car was gone. "Nooo!" He ran back for the house, grabbing his phone to call, Penny.

He didn't actually know where her father's lab was, so he couldn't find it on his own.

Eldon looked back in his rear view mirror, feeling guilty as he got further and further away from the house. He knew he could get done for kidnapping by doing this, especially with the child of someone that worked in law enforcement, but he had to help all the other people that were involved.

Ethan woke up when they arrived, wondering why his Grandfather would take him anywhere while he was still in his pyjamas. He unstrapped his seatbelt as he realised they had stopped, giving the man a surprised look as he opened the door for him, revealing the lab where he worked behind him.

"What are we doing here, Granddad?" The child rubbed his sleepy eyes open, getting his thumb caught in his tangled hair. He wasn't used to having this much hair. It was really annoying.

"I just need to pick something up." He lifted his grandson from the back of the car, holding him against his hip as he locked up the car. The old man was surprised at how much younger and energetic he felt. Greg had only aged him by forty years using the device, knocking a whole ten years off his original age. "You don't mind coming in with me a sec, do yah?" Eldon gave his grandson a smile, pretending everything was completely normal as he carried the child inside. "You haven't seen inside here since you were about four. You wonna take the grand tour of the lab?"

"Yeah, where's Daddy though?" Now that he and his father had patched things up, he thought that Nick wouldn't let him out of his sight.

"He had to get back to work." His Grandfather lied, carrying the child through the busy lab. He showed him around some of the labs so he wouldn't get suspicious, before he stopped off at a large empty one. "Do you want to see how some of this works?" He set his grandson onto an empty table.

Ethan didn't look as inquisitive as he did before; starting to worry about what he was really doing here. He knew for a fact that his father wouldn't even let him leave the house without socks on, so there was no way he would let him leave the house in his pyjamas, with no shoes or socks.

"I want my Daddy. Can we call him now?" He stopped the man from connecting something to his wrist. "I wonna go home. Please Granddad, I want Daddy."

"We'll call your Dad after this." He assured him, firmly strapping the device around Ethan's wrist, before he reached for something else as soon as it was in place.

"Where's my Mommy?" Ethan wasn't sure what the device around his wrist was, but it seemed to be beeping in time with his heart, getting quicker the more scared he got. He leant back as his Grandfather tried to connect something to his head, making the man realise that this wasn't going to be very easy. "I wonna go home."

"Ethan," He looked into the child's eyes. "I'm trying to help you and Catherine switch back."

"Why isn't she here?" He looked around for her.

"Because... it's my priority to help my grandson first." He gave the child a smile, placing an unusual sticky thing on the side of Ethan's head. "It won't hurt you, I give you my word." He reached for another, placing it on the other side of the child's head. Ethan remained still, watching the man curiously as he connected various other devices to his head, along with one to his chest beneath his pyjamas that felt much colder than all the others.

As Eldon made his way over to one of the computers, Ethan looked towards the door, trying to remember the way they came in. He used to trust his Grandfather completely, but now he was scaring him.

He turned his head back to the man, widening his eyes as he saw him preparing a needle. "Granddad, I want my Daddy now." He started to panic even more, feeling tears running down his cheeks.

"Shh, I'm not going to hurt you." Eldon made his way back to the frightened child, gently wiping away his tears with his thumb. "I'd never hurt you. You're my flesh and blood, which is why I'm going to help you, sweetheart. I can't leave you like this." He looked into the child's eyes, trying to get him to trust him.

"Will you call, Daddy?" The child's voice croaked.

"I've already called him. He's on his way here with Catherine." The man lied to his own grandson, knowing he was going to hell for this. He had to fix his mistakes first. He'd worry about the other consequences later. "C'mon sweetheart, when you wake up, you'll be completely back to normal." He pulled the child's arm away from him, holding it tightly as he tried to find the vein.

* * *

"Catherine!" Nick raced down the hall with his baby girl in his arms, finding her still curled up on the sofa bed, looking at herself in a hand held mirror. "Cath, I need you to watch Avery for a sec. Penny's on her way back, so it won't be for long, but I gotta go." He held the baby out to her.

"Whoa... leaving a nine year old in charge of a one year old." She sat up straight, giving him the third degree. "That's not very good parenting, Nicky. You can get your kids taken away from you for that."

"I'm already losin' one, and I don't think the normal rules really apply when the nine year old is in fact older than me. Can you just take her?" He handed her the baby, shivering at how weird it was to talk to his son like that. "Penny's ten minutes out, so it won't be for very long. I gotta go." He pressed a kiss to the baby's forehead, already feeling guilty for leaving her with someone that looked like a child, but he had to go after Eldon.

"Wait." Catherine supported the baby against herself, pushing herself to stand. "Jeez, what are you feeding this kid? She weighs a ton." She lifted the baby higher in her arms, hurrying after Nick through the hall. "Nicky, wait a second." She caught him before he left the house. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"Nothin'."

"Why do you have to leave so suddenly?" The child stepped in his way again, struggling with the baby in his arms. "Nick c'mon, you've got to give me something here."

"I'll... explain later." He grabbed his keys over the child's shoulder. "Put her in the playpen if you can't hold her." He indicated towards it across the room.

"As if I'm going to be able to lift her over that thing." She lifted the baby using her knee, feeling the strain in her lower back. "Don't go. You can't leave me like this." As she spoke, Avery started to cry, feeling unsafe in another child's arms.

"I have to." Nick simply answered, pulling the door open.

"Nicky!"

Leaving his guilt behind, Nick made his way towards his truck in the driveway, leaving Catherine alone with his crying baby. Penny had texted him the address of her father's lab, so all he had to do was find him before he had the chance to experiment on his son.

A lot easier said than done.

* * *

"This is crazy!" Greg protested, being backed up into the cell. The deputy on guard ignored him, doing as asked by Ecklie. "You don't understand!" He shouted through the closed bars of his cell, giving out an annoyed groan as he turned to look at his cell mate. "Oh great, you." He saw Hodges sat in the corner. "Why do I get paired with the one guy that I can't stand?"

"Why am I in here at all?" Hodges snapped back at him, showing obvious signs of discomfort over their situation himself. "I don't even understand what's going on here."

"I _would_ explain it if I thought you were capable of believing in something this crazy." Brushing down the bench with his hand, Greg cringed before he took a seat on it. "Ecklie's totally off his head if he thinks locking us up is going to prevent this thing from spreading." He looked up as he heard voices, widening his eyes as Ecklie and a deputy were ushering a very pregnant, Sara into one of the other cells.

"No, I want Mommy!" Sara fought against the two men, tears running down her vulnerable face. "Mommy! Mommy!" She wailed, anxiously looking around at all the strange people around her.

"You can't do that to Sara, are you crazy!" Greg shouted through his bars, being ignored again. "This is ridiculous!" He kicked the bed, causing his cell mate to jump.

Seeing how stressed the younger man was, Hodges made his over to the bench, hesitantly taking a seat beside him. "What's going on here?" He queried, sensing Greg knew exactly what this was about. "C'mon, we might be here a while, you _have_ to tell me something. Is this some conspiracy involving the new assistant supervisor? Because I've been hearing rumours from Henry and Mandy, they said he's not really here to assist the supervisor. There's rumours flying around that he's from IA or something."

The younger man couldn't help but let out a smirk, rolling his eyes at the man beside him. "Bryan Hammond isn't even involved in this, you can't believe anything those two say. Nick's wife, Penelope... her father's a scientist and an inventor. He created something that is supposed to allow the user to read minds, but it failed and it switches people's minds instead."

"Seriously?" Hodges cocked an eyebrow in his direction. "You don't honestly expect me to believe that, do you?"

"You can believe what you like, it's the truth." Greg looked up as he heard a creaking sound, watching as the deputy stood guard went to investigate what the sound was. The deputy double checked that all the cells were securely locked up, before he made his way up the stairs to the precinct. "Where's he going?" He asked no one in particular, wondering why he even had to guard them when they had been locked up.

"Nature called?" Hodges smirked, getting an eye roll in response. "Sorry, I'm not used to this being locked up stuff, okay? Cut me some slack. How do you propose we get out of here?"

"Psst... hey Greg," A voice came from down the hall.

Both men turned their attention towards their cell door, spotting Nick's son making his way towards them. The child looked over his shoulder, before he reached up for the cell lock, easily unlocking it with the keys he had in his hands.

"Eth... Catherine," Greg remembered, climbing to his feet off the bench. "What are you doing here? How'd you get here? Where'd you find the keys?"

"Can we save the fifty questions until later?" She hissed, slowly pulling the door open so it didn't creak too loudly. "C'mon, Nicky's gone to Eldon's lab. Eldon kidnapped Ethan. We have to go." The child informed him, ushering him towards the door. "C'mon, hurry up."

"How do you know he isn't going to come back?" Greg anxiously looked towards the stairs, wondering where the guard even went.

"Let's get moving while he isn't here then." She hissed at him. "Penny's distracting the deputies outside. We have to get all those affected to the lab with Eldon, so he can switch them all back. He called ahead and said that Ethan's the source. Everybody he's come into contact with is affected by this thing. So we have to go, now!"

"Okay." Greg stepped out of the cell, pulling the keys from the door. He quickly unlocked the cell door beside him, letting David and Doc Robbins out or Doc Robbins inside David, while David was inside, Doc Robbins. The old doctor was amazed at how it felt to have full use of perfectly healthy legs again, but he was annoyed that he didn't get put in someone more good looking and less annoying then his side kick from the morgue.

Catherine made her way over to the door to keep watch, noticing that Hodges was staring at her.

"C'mon, c'mon," Greg ushered them out of the cell, going for the next cell where they had locked up Wendy and Sara. Wendy didn't appear to be affected by it, but Sara was huddled up in the corner of the room crying like a baby. "Catherine, we're gonna need some help transporting these guys to the lab." He pointed out to her, going for the next cell with Brass and his arguing deputy inside.

Catherine anxiously looked around the police station, not knowing who they could trust. If Warrick was still alive, he would be their first choice, but they didn't have much of a team left now that he was gone.

"About time, Sanders!" The young deputy snapped at him, mimicking the Captain's personality as he stepped out of his cell. "What's your plan on getting us past that moron, Conrad? I can't believe he would do this to me."

"Calm down, Jim." The child across the room shouted, starting to get anxious now that they were all out of their cells. She had never been involved in anything like this before, but she knew it was for the best. "Grissom." She spotted the man arguing with Ecklie in the entrance. Ecklie had obviously decided against locking Grissom up since he didn't work here anymore, making him their best bet to get out of here. "I'll be back." She called over her shoulder to Greg, before she hurried through the crowd of gathering deputies, wondering what was going on.

"So your plan is to lock up my pregnant wife!" Grissom shouted at the other man. "If there _is_ some toxic virus here that's affecting the team, I want my wife and unborn child as far away from here as possible." He looked over Ecklie's shoulder, spotting a child frantically waving at him, trying to get his attention. He chose to ignore the child, focusing his attention on the idiot in front of him. "I need to see Brass, where is he?"

"Detained, like the rest of them." Ecklie indicated towards the holding cells over his shoulder. "We're still hunting down, Stokes, but we've got the rest of the team down there. This specialist doctor is on the way. It's the only way to keep them calm and in one place, until we can get them cleared. You're welcome to stay too. I've got a perfect cell with your name on it." He grinned at the man, finally walking away from him as his cell started to ring. "Ecklie... yes, that's good. Yes, we have the team affected in a safe place..."

Grissom rolled his eyes, spotting the child making his way towards him. "Eh... Ethan, Nick's son, right?" He hadn't seen the boy in a few years, but he looked just like Nick.

"Sort of," Catherine looked up at the man above her, knowing there wasn't time to explain her situation to him right now. "It's hard to explain. Grissom, Greg needs your help down in the holding cells. He's getting everyone out. We have to take them to another lab. Nick's there. We can help, Sara." She assured him, perking his ears up. She reached her hand out for the man's hand, eager to get him on the move, before someone went to check on their latest inmates.

"Ow! My tummy hurts! I want Mommy!"

"Is that Sara?" Grissom hurried down the stairs, finding his wife sat on the floor. He noticed the puddle beneath her. He looked around the room at his old team, thinking they were acting a lot more normal than his wife. He wasn't sure what kind of outbreak this was, but it didn't look serious.

"I think her waters have broken." Hodges stated the obvious to the man. "She's going into labour."

"Yes, David. I can see that." Grissom glared at the annoying man, before he turned his attention towards the younger man across the room. "C'mon Greg, we have to get her to the hospital."

Greg anxiously bit his lower lip, knowing the toddler in Sara's mind couldn't go through with the labour and Sara certainly wouldn't want to miss the birth of her first child. "We can't, we have to take her to the lab." The younger man insisted. "Grissom, we can't help her unless we get her to the lab. This isn't Sara, it's her body, but there's someone else in her mind. The same with Ethan." He pointed to the child behind his ex supervisor. "That's Catherine in Nick's child's head. We have to get them to this other lab so we can fix them."

"He's telling the truth." Hodges backed him up, having seen enough evidence for himself. He didn't believe a word of it until he saw Doc Robbins and David fighting like cats and dogs, only they were fighting completely the opposite from how they used to as they were in one another's minds. It was a lot to take in, but he couldn't deny what he had seen.

"Come on!" Catherine anxiously jumped up and down behind them. "Enough of this boring chit chat, we have to get out of here!" She hurried them along, wondering how they were even going to get there, as they didn't have a car big enough to transport them all.

* * *

Meanwhile at the lab, Nick followed the directions the secretary had given him, searching for his missing child. He finally made it to the right lab, spotting Eldon inside, but there was no sign of his son. He made his way over to him, startling the man from his sudden appearance.

Before he could say anything though, Nick punched him in the face, sending him toppling backwards through a chair.

"Okay, okay... I understand that you're upset," Eldon held the side of his face, quickly backing away from the angry young man. "But I did it for your son's sake. Do you want him to be trapped like this for the rest of his life? He's the catalyst. I'm just monitoring him to see how he's changing these people. He can't feel a thing, I've sedated him."

"You sedated him!" Nick pushed the chair aside, forcing Eldon back against the shelving unit behind him, imprinting an impression of each shelf on the man's back. He gripped a handful of the man's shirt, ignoring the glass bottles that fell off the shelf and smashed to the floor. "How dare you do anythin' to my son without my permission! You stole him from my house. You kidnapped him. He's just a little boy!"

"I'm trying to save him. Everything I've done I've done it to save him." Eldon struggled to release Nick's hands from his shirt. "Please, you've got to understand that he's our only hope. If I don't do this, you're going to end up raising your work colleague as your son, and your son, Ethan as your new daughter. Do you want that?"

Nick looked across the room, spotting his son lying helplessly on a table.

"No, Nick." Eldon tried to stop him from going over to him. "He's fine, he's just sleeping. He can't feel a thing. You know I wouldn't put my own grandson in any kind of danger like that."

"Really, then why'd you give him this stupid thing in the first place!" Nick snapped at him. "None of this would have happened if you just kept that stupid thing locked up here in your lab. What you did is just as bad as givin' him a loaded gun."

"Not... really," Eldon took a step away from the man, before he told him the real reason, "Maybe if you had spent some more time with him in the first place, he wouldn't feel the need to transfer himself to his baby sister in order to get you to notice him. Now if you don't mind, I have work to do."

"Take me!" Nick stopped the man from walking away from him. "Trade me for him. You can do that can't you? Put me in his place." He looked at his son. "Make me your guinea pig, not my son."

"I'm sorry, Nick. I can't . . . it won't be the same. It'll just be your mind... in that body." He pointed out to him. "I'd put myself in his place if I could, but it has to be him. His mind is the catalyst. He won't feel a thing." He tried to assure the concerned father. "I've put him to sleep. He'll probably wake up with a bad headache or something, but we'll be able to get him back to his body, along with everyone else who was switched. It's a small price to pay to help these people."

"I'm not lettin' you do this to him." Nick seized hold of his arm. "He's my child."

"Nick, you're acting as if I'm about to torture him. I'm reading his brain waves, while I activate the device, so I can read exactly what kind of connection it has. When I have the reading, I can reverse it and switch everyone else back." He trembled under the more muscular man's hold. "I swear to you, he won't feel a thing."

"But you're puttin' him in that." Nick pointed towards the large machine he was about to put his son in. The part where Ethan was going to go looked very much like a large coffin. Nick couldn't face putting his son in a Plexiglas coffin like that, not even for a second. "There must be somethin' you can do. Use the device on me; maybe it's not just, Ethan, but everyone who uses it? How would you know? You've only monitored him after this..."

"Nick."

"No, use me! Why would it do this to him and not the others?"

"Nick..."

"Try." The younger man pleaded, keeping Eldon away from any of the equipment. "If it doesn't work on me... then you can try it on him. Use me first. C'mon!" He demonstrated how angry he was by pushing over one of the tables that was holding lots of little glass bottles with all sorts of liquids in them. "Use me!" He shouted, giving his father in law another shove.

Eldon knew that there was no point to this, since the device wasn't displaying the same effects on anyone else, but he decided to humour, Nick, so could get on. "Alright," He reluctantly agreed. "I doubt it'll be the same, but I'll give it a go. Give me a minute."

The man hesitantly stepped around the angry Texan, making his way towards his heavily sedated grandchild. He unstrapped Ethan from the various devices, putting Nick in his place.

"How old are you?" The man queried, grabbing the device from the other table.

"Thirty eight." Nick took a seat on the table, removing his t-shirt as instructed. "How much are you gonna do?" He gulped hard, feeling stupid for going through this as it was his worst fear, but he had to for his son.

"Um... I don't know, enough for an effect." He adjusted one of the dials. "You know that you're wasting your time by doing this, Nick. It hasn't displayed the same effects on anyone else."

"You haven't monitored anyone else through the changes. Maybe they're all infected with this devices stuff and they're all a catalyst to it." He suggested to him. "So, how much are you gonna do?"

"Ten years." The man shrugged, quickly confirming, "Making you twenty eight," as he saw the shock on Nick's face as he thought he was going to make him a child again. "That should be enough time... if possible, to form a psychic bond." He adjusted the dial, before he pointed it at Nick. "Sure about this?"

"Yeah." Nick nodded, closing his eyes as Eldon activated the device on him.

The younger man felt strange tingles running through his body, but he didn't notice many changes. He lost a little bit of muscle weight, his hair thickened on his head and his waistline shrank a little, but nothing that was very noticeable to him.

Once it was done, the older man started connecting him up to all the various machines. Nick wasn't as fidgety as Ethan was, so it was easier to hook him up to everything without having to sedate him. He connected the last device that was monitoring his brain, before he helped him into the machine.

Eldon wasn't aware of it, but Nick was terrified as he lay down in the Plexiglas coffin, having flashes of the horrors that he suffered in one of these before.

Eldon closed the lid, hoping this would work as he made his way over to the main computer. Nick squeezed his eyes tightly shut as the machine wheeled the coffin he was in backwards towards the unusual MRI looking thing. He didn't care what was going on outside the machine; he was just trying to keep himself grounded and sane.

The one positive thought running through his mind was the fact that he wouldn't have to be yanked out of this coffin by a rope attached to his belt. A chill ran down his spine as he remembered what it was like to have the dirt come crashing down on top of him, suffocating him, before he was suspended into the air.

Eldon made his way over to one of the other machines, hitting a few buttons, before he heard a loud click coming from behind him. He quickly spun round, seeing the young man from earlier stood behind him, pointing a gun at him.

"Let him go." The younger man demanded, holding the gun as steady as he could. Having just raced over here in his car with Grissom, Catherine and a screaming Sara, he wasn't in the mood to listen to any kind of excuses that he had for trapping his boyfriend in a Plexiglas coffin.

"He chose this." Eldon put his hands up anyway, watching out the corner of his eye as the machine began to scan, Nick. "You can ask him yourself... when he comes out." He raised his hands a little higher as Greg took another step closer. "Eh... Greg," He remembered his name. "Put the gun down... please. They make me nervous."

"Not till you let him go." Greg stood his ground, seeing a little girl out the corner of his eye that he recognised as Ethan. He appeared to be okay, just asleep. "Let Nick out." He took another step towards the man. "Let him out!" He shouted, hitting the side of the older man's head with the end of the end of the gun barrel.

"Okay, okay..." Eldon slowly moved his right hand towards one of the buttons, keeping his eyes fixed on Greg as he pushed it.

The younger man lowered the gun, expecting the machine to open, but it didn't appear to be doing anything different from what it was doing before.

While his head was turned away, Eldon quickly disarmed Greg, forcing him to the ground. He was surprised that he managed to do it so easily, but then he remembered that he was ten years younger than he used to be.

"I'm not hurting him." He assured Greg, keeping his knee positioned in the middle of the younger man's back to keep him on the floor. "I wanted to scan, Ethan, but Nick got in the way. How you people ever expect me to reverse this when you won't let me work is beyond me."

They both looked up as the machine buzzed, signalling that the scan was complete.

"Now, let's see what its come up with." Eldon climbed to his feet, making his way over to his computer.

Leaving his gun on the floor, Greg scrambled to his feet, hurrying over the other side of the room. He popped the lid open as soon as the Plexiglas coffin had wheeled itself out, immediately noticing how much his boyfriend was shaking. "C'mon baby, I gotcha." Greg reaching into the coffin for him, knowing the memories of the previous coffin he was trapped in were creeping up on him. "I got you. I got you, Nicky." He wrapped his arms tightly around him, dropping to his knees with him onto the floor. "Hey, you're okay. See, it's me. Greg. You're safe."

While Greg was clutching his lover's trembling form, Eldon checked the monitors, surprised to see that it actually worked. He double checked all the readouts, smiling as Nick was right. It really did work with him too.

"Eh... Greg," He just realised how close they were. "You might not wonna..." He sighed, knowing it was too late now. "Never mind... just don't... touch anyone else." He warned him, not sure the man was even listening to him.

Greg brushed his fingers through Nick's sticky hair, noticing that it was slightly thicker. After dating the man for the past few months, Greg knew every inch of him, so he could immediately tell that something about him had changed. His skin was paler and smoother, his jaw a little less defined and he felt slightly smaller in his arms.

"Nicky, what did you do?" He brushed his thumbs across the laugh lines beside Nick's eyes, noticing they weren't as deep or pronounced as they were before. "You used it on him?" He looked up Eldon, as the man made his way over to them. "How could you use it on him?"

"He begged me to. It was a choice between him and his son, and he chose him." He pointed out to him, carefully removing the wires and things from Nick's head. "See I told you, wouldn't hurt a bit."

"Touch my boyfriend again; I'll break all your fingers." Greg threatened him, accidentally outing the two of them in front of the team that just entered the lab. He didn't notice or care about them though, more concerned with how Nick was doing. "Nicky, are you okay?" He removed the rest of the wires himself, hoping he wasn't catatonic or anything like that, knowing how hard it must have been for him to take his son's place.

While Greg was preoccupied, Eldon turned to look at the team gathered at his door, giving out a sigh as he had a lot of work to do. "There's a break room just down the hall..."

"Yeah, we don't have time for that, buddy." A young deputy took a step forwards. "This woman's in labour and we have jobs to get back to. Get us back to normal now, or I arrest you on the spot."

"Alright, but you're really in no position to threaten me." Eldon spoke softly, pointing them to the break room again. "I have some work to do before I use this on anyone. If she really is in labour, there's an empty lab next door. I'll get someone to help you and make her my priority once I'm sure that this works."

"You're still under arrest." Brass warned him, shaking his finger at him, before he helped Grissom down the hall with his hysterical three year old wife. "You found the kid that she switched with yet?"

Grissom nodded, trying to restrain his wife's arms as she lashed out at the strangers around her, "Yeah, Lydia's meeting us here. She didn't take much convincing after her three year old started threatening her with law suits."

Sara, also known as Lucy reluctantly made her way into the room, seeing a bed in the corner. She pulled out of their arms, hurrying over to it as her stomach started hurting again. She didn't know what it was or why it hurt so much, but she wanted her Mommy here to make it stop, not these strange men that kept calling her a different name.

* * *

**Thanks for reading, please review!**

**~ Holly**


	9. Chapter 8: Normal

**Chapter Eight: Normal**

When he woke up, Ethan was hoping that everything would be back to normal. He lifted his head from where he was sleeping, not recognising the apartment he was in, making him worry that his Granddad had taken him somewhere else. Struggling to a sitting position, he groaned as he was forced to brush back his new long hair from his face. He realised that his arms and legs were still small too, indicating that he was still trapped as a little girl.

"Daddy?" He realised that he had been covered with his father's jacket, as he slipped off the sofa onto the soft floor with his bare feet. "Dad?" He clutched the man's jacket close to his chest, making his way down the hall towards one of the rooms. He jumped back as the door in front of him opened, disappointed to see that it was Greg and not his father. "Where's my Daddy?" He asked him, rubbing his sleepy eyes open.

"Hey, you're awake." Greg slowly knelt down in front of the child. "Your Daddy's sleeping, kiddo." He pointed him towards the bed. "I brought you and your Daddy back here so you could sleep, while your Granddad's working on the device back at the lab to change you back."

"Can I see him?" Ethan tried to look over the man's shoulder, but he could only see a cloud of covers.

"Yeah." The man slowly reached his hands out for the child, lifting him into his arms. He carried him towards the opposite side of the bed, where Nick was lying on his back, fast asleep. "Here he is."

Adjusting the covers, Greg gently set the child onto the bed, allowing him to snuggle closer to his father.

Greg returned to his seat across the room, waking his computer up to continue with his research. He looked up again as Ethan started to fidget, wondering if something was wrong. He had sensed that the child had taken a dislike to him, so he knew it wasn't going to be easy to talk to him.

"Are you okay?" He leant against the side of the bed, watching Ethan rolling uncomfortably on the bed. "Can I get you something?"

Ethan shook his head, resting his arms against the pillow above his head. "Are you single?" He suddenly asked.

"Well um... yeah, sort of." Greg hesitantly answered.

"What does that mean?" He gave the man a curious look. Greg didn't think that he should out Nick to his child, so he remained silent. "I saw you kiss my Daddy." Ethan admitted to him, making Greg anxiously bite his lower lip. "Why?"

"Why what?" Greg knelt down to his level.

"Why do you like him?" The child asked, rolling over onto his side to judge, Greg's expression as he answered him. But he didn't know what to say, so he kept quiet again. Ethan dropped back to the bed, leaning against his father's side as he brushed back the long hair from his face. "My Mommy left my Daddy. I thought it was the other way around. I thought he didn't want to be with us."

"He'd be with you everyday if he could." Greg pointed out to him. "He never stops talking about you at work." Catching the child trying to mask a yawn, Greg smiled at him, suggesting, "Why doncha try and get some sleep? Your Granddad is gonna call us once he's got the device fixed. He's gonna fix everyone else at the lab first, because your Auntie Sara's gone into labour with her baby."

"Really, is she having a boy or girl?"

"Don't know yet, they haven't been born yet. We'll get you and Catherine switched back to normal in no time though." He assured him. "In the meantime, you and your Daddy really need your sleep. If I can get you anything..."

Ethan struggled to sit up, asking, "Can you make a hot chocolate?"

"I sure can." Greg smiled at him, extending his hand out to him. "You wonna come in the kitchen with me?"

"I need to go to the toilet first."

"Okay, no problem." The man slid his hands beneath the child's arms, lifting him into his embrace. He carried him down the hall towards the bathroom, setting him on the tiled floor, while he turned the light on for him. "Need any help?"

"I'm nine." Ethan stretched his five year old arm out for the door, ushering the man out of the bathroom so he had some peace. The truth was, he wasn't even tall enough to reach the door handle at the moment, but he didn't want Greg of all people to help him onto the toilet.

He made his way over to the larger contraption, pushing the toilet seat back first, before he judged how he was going to get onto it. When he really was this size a few years ago, his parents used to have a foot stool for him to stand on, as he couldn't reach that many things around the house. Greg had never had any children himself though, and there wasn't anything he could use to stand on.

Giving out an annoyed groan, Ethan made his way back across the room, struggling to pull the door open. As he finally managed to open it, pulling it towards him, he spotted Greg stood outside in the hallway, leant against the wall. "I want my Daddy."

"I can help you." Greg suggested, knowing it was a bad idea as he saw the look on the child's face. "What do you need?"

"My Daddy."

"Okay." Pushing himself to stand, Greg made his way back to the bedroom, gently shaking Nick awake. He really didn't want to wake him after what he had been through, but his child needed him. "Nicky, wakey, wakey," He shook him again, smiling as the man fluttered his eyes open. "Sorry. Ethan needs you, in the bathroom."

"Oh... okay," Nick gave out a wide yawn, struggling to get out of the bed. He seemed a lot more lucid then he was back at the lab, so Greg figured that he was feeling better. Nick rubbed the sleep from his eyes, sleepily making his way down the hall towards the bathroom. "Hey, bud..." He stepped into the room, closing the door behind him, so his son wasn't embarrassed by Greg's presence. "You need help."

"I need the toilet." His son was dancing on the spot, trying to hold it in.

"Okay." Nick helped him with his pyjama bottoms, before he lifted him onto the toilet. Once Ethan was comfortable, Nick reached into his pocket as his phone started to ring, relieved to see that it was Paige, Penny's mother. She met them at the lab last night, getting her husband, Eldon into gear, while she helped Grissom out with Sara. She used to be a midwife before she retired, so she could assist with the birth of their baby. "Hi, Mrs Harding..."

"_Skip the formalities, Nicky, I've told you for years to call me, Paige, and it's Ms Henderson now. Divorce papers have been served I'll have you know."_ She rambled, just like she always did. "_Now if I can only get the man I was married to for thirty seven years to sign the damn things..."_

"Paige." He cut her off.

"_Right, well my very annoying soon to be ex husband has told me to tell you that we are ready for you and your son at the lab now. Your very nice work colleague, Catherine is starting to get more than a little agitated over her current predicament. I keep telling her that she brought this on herself and she should be thinking of what she's done to my grandson more than her own situation. I still can't believe that a spineless woman like her could leave my grandson in the lab alone to save her own skin."_

Nick sighed softly, perching himself on the edge of the bathtub as she continued to go on and on.

"_You'll be glad to know that your, Sara, friend is back to her normal self, and that darling little three year old, Lucy is back to her normal self too. She's none the wiser to what happened, just like her own mother. She's planning on putting it all behind her as a bad dream or something. Anyway, Sara and Grissom have been taken off to the hospital in the ambulance... just as a precaution. We didn't want to put them in a taxi and have them..."_

"So they're at the hospital now?" He interrupted her again, climbing to his feet as Ethan had finished. He helped the child off the toilet, letting him pull his pyjama bottoms up, before he lifted him up to the sink to wash his hands.

"_Oh yes, the delivery suite. She's still in labour. Could be hours yet too, she wasn't having regular contractions when she left here and she certainly hadn't started dilating."_ The woman looked over her shoulder as she heard a knock, rolling her eyes as her husband angrily tapped his watch. "_Anyway, we're ready when you are, Nicky. I'm sure Catherine's eager to get back to her life. How's Ethan holding up?"_

"He's fine." Nick placed the child on the floor, handing him the hand towel from the rack. "We'll be there in a few minutes. Thanks, Paige." He snapped his phone shut before she could speak again, turning his attention back to his child. "What?" He knelt down in front of him, looking into the child's unfamiliar eyes.

It was still hard to believe that his son was really in there, but he couldn't just abandon him because he didn't look the same to him.

"Daddy... I don't want to be a girl forever."

"It's not for much longer," He brushed his thumb beneath the child's eye, wiping away a tear. "That was Grandma Paige on the phone. Your Granddad's fixed your Aunt Sara; he just needs us over there to change you and Aunt Catherine back."

"And you, Daddy." He had noticed that his father was looking younger.

"Yeah, and me." Nick smiled at him, lifting the smaller child into his arms to hug him. "I love you, darlin'. Never think that I don't, because I do." He wrapped his arms tighter around him, climbing to his feet with him so they could make their way to the lab.

"What about my hot chocolate?" Ethan asked, looking around for Greg as they stepped out of the bathroom. "Greg, can I still have my hot chocolate?"

"Please." Nick reminded him of his manners.

"Pwease." Ethan sweetly smiled at the man.

"Of course you can. Nicky, you want anything?" Greg made his way back towards the kitchen. Nick shook his head, keeping his child against his side. "Oh, I found you some of my clothes to wear in my room. I don't have anything that'll fit Ethan, but you can borrow some of my t-shirts." He pointed him through to his room, before he continued on his journey towards the kitchen to make a hot chocolate for Ethan.

* * *

Meanwhile at the lab, Catherine continued to pace the hallway, anxiously looking at the clock in the office beside her. She wasn't sure what was taking Nick so long, but he was starting to really annoy her. She didn't want to be stuck as a nine year old boy for much longer, especially as her sister was starting to ask questions, since Lindsey had been left on her own.

Spotting the old lady from before coming out of one of the rooms, Catherine shouted, "Oi you, did you call him yet?"

"Oi you? Oi you?" The older woman made her way towards the child. "I have a name, you know." She leant down to the child's level, warning her, "Speak to me like that again and the next thing you'll feel will be my hand across your backside."

"Was that a threat?" Catherine folded her arms across her chest, returning the angry glare. "I may be a child at the moment, but... ow!"

The woman suddenly grabbed her ear, dragging her down the hall towards another room. "Someone really needs to teach you some manners..."

"Mom!" Penny caught her mother dragging the child towards one of the labs. "Mom, let hi-her go." She had to remind herself that Catherine was still possessing her child's body. She adjusted the baby she had in her arms, reaching her free hand out for Catherine. "Mom, she's just scared. The same as Ethan is. Nick just called me from the car; they're on their way in."

As soon as the woman released her ear, Catherine slipped away, hiding behind Penny as if she were her real mother.

"I wasn't going to hurt her." Paige folded her arms across her chest, unable to believe that her own daughter would think that. "But someone's got to teach her some manners. I wouldn't let my own grandson talk to me like that, what makes her any different?"

"Because she's practically as old as you and she's trapped in the body of a child. My child." Penny shouted at the woman, taking her children away as Avery started to cry from her raised voice. The truth was that Penny was still mad at her mother for leaving her father, and she didn't want all that anger to come out in front of her children.

Even if one of them happened to be a grown woman.

"Nick!" Catherine spotted the man climbing the stairs ahead of them, with a red headed little girl in his arms. "Nick. Finally, I thought you were never going to show up." She was practically jumping up and down with excitement, as if she were a real child of Ethan's age. "Can we get this over with?"

"Gimme a minute." Once he reached the top of the stairs, Nick set Ethan on the floor, before he made his way over to Penny. He lifted his crying baby girl from her arms, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he repositioned her against his chest. "Everythin' okay?" He looked at his ex in front of him.

"Yeah, I'm just tired." Penny looked at the unfamiliar child stood beside Nick, knowing she should be comforting the little girl as she was really her son, but she didn't feel that familiar motherly bond towards the little red head. "My Dad's through there." She pointed to a lab over her shoulder. "He's waiting for you and Ethan."

"I just called Grissom at the hospital, Sara's still in labour and still herself. Doc Robbins is back to normal with his wife too. There's no reason why it won't work for Ethan." He tried to reassure her, seeing the apprehensive look on the woman's face.

"Yeah, I know. You should get going. I don't think, Catherine, can wait around here much longer."

"Okay. Go back to Mommy," Nick pressed another kiss to Avery's forehead once she had settled down, handing her back to her mother. "C'mon, darlin'." He lifted his eldest child into his arms, taking him and Catherine through to the lab.

Eldon got Catherine and Ethan set up first, making a few adjustments to the modified device, before he pointed it in their direction. He hoped that this worked just as well as it did with the others, especially as one of them was his own flesh and blood.

Nick anxiously watched from behind him, wondering how long it would take to switch them back. He wasn't even sure what he was supposed to be looking for, as he couldn't exactly tell if they had been switched.

Catherine and Ethan however saw the familiar bright white light burst in front of their eyes, the same one they had seen in the locker rooms. Once she could see again, Catherine raised her hand to her face, expecting to see her own hand, but it was still so small and unfamiliar to her.

"Hey, it didn't work!" The little girl protested, shocked by the sound of her voice. It was much higher and more girly then it was before. Looking to her left, Catherine saw the boy that she used to be, realising that the only thing the old man had done was switch them back. "Hey! I can't go back to my job like this. It's illegal!" The five year old shrieked.

"Relax, Catherine. He'll get you back to your normal age." Nick realised that they had switched, noticing the personality change right away. He rescued his son from the device's line of fire, relieved to have his little boy back in the right body in his arms again. "You okay, darlin'?" He held him close to his chest, watching his son checking himself to make sure he was really back to normal.

Sensing that his son needed confirmation, Nick carried him out of the lab towards the men's room he had seen earlier, knowing there were mirrors inside. He positioned himself in front of the mirror, waiting for his son to look up on his own.

Ethan eventually turned his head, looking at his feet in the mirror first. He was no longer bare footed, so that was a good sign. He was wearing his favourite pair of sneakers that his Granddad had bought him for his ninth birthday. Beneath that he could see a familiar pair of his red and black stripy socks.

Next were a pair of his jeans that he hadn't worn since a cowboy themed birthday party he went to. He didn't like wearing jeans, he found them really uncomfortable. He preferred his combat pants or his shorts as they were easier to run about in. A button down shirt was on top, one that he would never wear unless he was visiting his Nan and Granddad from his father's side of the family over in Texas.

The best part of all though had to be his own face looking back at him. He had the same colour and style hair as his father. His eyes were the same shape as his mother's, a much lighter brown then his father's, but they were just as deep and soulful as his Dad's.

He rested his head against his father's shoulder, feeling as though he finally belonged again. He looked just like his parents and he was part of a family again, not a complete stranger to them.

"Hey, it's okay, darlin'." His father saw his tears, clutching him closer with his hand on the back of his head. "Shh, you're okay, sweetheart." He pressed a kiss to his son's forehead, swaying with him in his arms like he used to do when he was just a baby. He used to spend every waking moment with his little boy back then.

He missed those days.

His child was easier to protect then.

Nick eventually returned to the hallway of the lab, drying his son's tears away with the sleeve of the hooded sweatshirt that Greg had lent him. He made his way towards the lab's staff room first, where Penny was sat with their baby girl. "You're using a bottle?" He noticed the bottle of milk in Avery's mouth.

"Yeah, and it's formula too." Penny looked up at him, shifting herself aside on the sofa as she saw that he had their son asleep in his arms. "He's back then?"

"Yeah, your Dad's gettin' Catherine back to normal now."

When Nick sat down, Penny gently placed her hand over her little boy's head, checking his temperature. She was worried that being away from his natural body for so long would have done some damage to his brain, but he didn't feel hot or cold.

"He always did sleep better in your arms. I've always thought that it was because you held him first. He got used to your arms before mine."

"He always wanted you in the middle of the night though." Nick reminded her, smiling at the memory of their two year old demanding that Mommy scare the monsters away so he could go back to sleep. "Where did Greg go?" He suddenly realised that he wasn't here.

"He took off. You only just noticed?"

"I was a little preoccupied." The man indicated towards his child in his arms. "Did he say anythin'? Did he say where he was goin'?" He wanted to go after him, but he couldn't with his sleeping, still so vulnerable child in his arms.

As Penny shook her head, Nick anxiously bit his lower lip, hoping that Greg wasn't annoyed that he had just abandoned him like that. He didn't even remember seeing him past the stairs when they came in.

"Maybe you should go after him?" Penny suggested, adjusting Avery on her lap once she had finished her bottle. She lifted her against her shoulder, gently patting her on the back while she sorted through her bag. "I can stay here and look after these two. I should really be getting them back home soon anyway. Avery's wet again and I only have one diaper left in my bag."

"You can take em home now then. I'll help you get em to the car. They don't need to be here anymore." He climbed to his feet again, trying not to disturb his child's sleep as he did. He adjusted, Ethan, against his side, holding him with one arm beneath his legs. He then reached out for Penny's bag with his free hand, so she only had to worry about carrying the baby down the stairs.

Once they got outside, Penny unlocked her car, placing Avery down in her car seat, so she had her hands free to open the other door for Nick. "Daddy?" Ethan rubbed his eyes, feeling the sun on his face.

"It's okay, darlin'. Go back to sleep." Nick gently placed him in the car, putting his seatbelt on for him. He pressed a kiss to the boy's forehead, easing the door shut on him so he wouldn't wake him. "You want me to do Avery's diaper?" He made his way round the other side of the car before she gave him an answer, lifting the squirmy one year old out of her seat.

"Aren't you going after Greg?" Penny followed him round the car.

"We're not joined at the hip. He's probably gone up the hospital to see, Sara. They're pretty close." He opened up the passenger side door, placing Avery on her back across the seat. He unbuttoned the poppers across her diaper, giving her a smile as she gurgled softly. "I can't believe she's one already. It seems like she was only just born a couple of months ago."

"They grow up fast." His ex climbed into the driver's side of her car, watching Avery kicking her legs up in the air, continuing her adorable gurgling as Nick slipped the clean diaper beneath her. "They miss their Daddy, you know. Maybe you should start taking them more than every other weekend?" She suggested, catching Nick looking up slightly. "It was never our idea in the first place. It was the lawyer's because of your hours. You've got their own separate rooms set up at your place; you could take them for a couple of days during the week."

"I wouldn't be there though. They'd be with a sitter half the time." He pointed out to her, buttoning Avery back into her clothes. "Don't get me wrong, I want to see them more. I'd see them all day, every day if I could." He made Penny feel guilty again for kicking him out.

"Think of it this way Nicky, you and Greg would have never got this close if I didn't do what I did. You love him, don't you?" She didn't need an answer as she saw the look in his eyes. "See, you're better off. He likes you too, I can tell. Go after him, I'll get these two home."

"There's just one thing I have to do first." After pressing a kiss to the top of his daughter's head, he buckled her into her seat, then waved them off as Penny drove away. He returned to the lab, finding a fully grown, Catherine, wrapped in a lab coat, complaining that Eldon had made her too old.

"I have your driver's licence." Eldon held it up to the woman, running his finger beneath her birth date. "I did it exactly right. You're only forty s..."

"Don't shout it out like that!" The embarrassed woman cut him off, holding the lab coat tighter around herself as she spotted Nick walking into the room. "Oh c'mon, Eldon, you've got a device that can regress or progress someone's age; surely you can cut me some slack here. Just take five or so years off. C'mon, you of all people should know what it's like to be old."

"Yeah, but at least I age with a little dignity." He snapped back at her. "I seriously don't know what you're complaining about. You're a very attractive woman."

Nick grabbed the driver's licence from Eldon's hand, looking at the woman's birth date for himself. "Forty six? Your complainin' about that?" He cocked an eyebrow in the woman's direction, wondering why she was so upset. He thought that she'd be relieved to be back to her normal self again. It was certainly better than the five year old girl she was when he left her.

"Oh shut up, Nick." She snatched it from his hands. "Like you men would understand anything. Why do women always get the raw deal?" She stormed out of the lab, making her way towards the ladies room. She didn't exactly have any makeup with her, but she couldn't go anywhere looking like this.

"You sure you wonna do this?" Eldon made a few adjustments to the dials, getting the device ready to get Nick back to normal too. "I don't want any more complaints."

"I'm sure. I just want everythin' to go back to normal."

Eldon gave out a smirk, wondering if the young man really knew what normal was.

* * *

**Thanks for reading, please review!**

**~ Holly**


	10. Epilogue

**Epilogue:**

Leaning in to kiss his wife, Grissom smiled widely at her, thinking she looked so beautiful even though her face was glistening with sweat, while her hair was an adorable mess. "I'm so proud of you." He whispered to her, meeting her exhausted gaze with his own. He looked over his shoulder as he heard a knock, realising that his mother was getting impatient to see her first grandchild. "You ready to let them in yet?"

"No." Sara shook her head, looking at her newborn peacefully sleeping in her arms. The baby gave out soft gurgles every few minutes, bundled up tightly in his mother's warm embrace. "A little boy. Can you believe it?" She looked up at her husband. "Are you happy it's a boy? I know you had your heart set on a little girl."

"I didn't have my heart set on a girl, it's just... I already have two boys." When he saw the look on his wife's face, he quickly explained, "The CSI's I used to be in charge of at the lab, they're all like my family. I know I never formed real bonds with them like you did, but I've never stopped caring about them. Catherine was always like a sister, as she didn't need my help and she argued with me when I gave her advice. Warrick always wanted to better himself, but Nick always needed my guidance and sought out my approval for everything he did. I didn't want to fall into this role..."

"I know what you mean." Sara smiled at him, saving him from having to explain further. "Alright, let's let your mother in to see him first. I really want Greg to meet him too. You still okay with him being the godparent?"

Grissom knew that she was only concerned about her baby's future since she had such a crappy first start in life, but he really didn't want to start planning his son's future on the day he was born. He gave her a nod to keep her happy, then made his way towards the door, letting his mother in to meet her grandchild.

Sara was a bit reluctant to hand her baby boy over to the woman at first, not wanting to let him go. She never thought that she would get this attached to something in such a short space of time, but she was definitely hooked. She was still trying to come to grips with the fact that he had been growing inside of her for the past nine months.

"Support his head." She warned the woman, unwillingly handing her baby over to her.

"She's held a baby before, Sara." Grissom pointed out to her, taking a seat beside her on the bed, while he watched his mother gently rocking their baby boy in her arms. He was still trying to come to grips with it himself. He knew that after these nine months were up, he would eventually have a child of his own, but he still felt too old to finally become a father.

After all, he was the appropriate age for a grandparent, not a first time father.

His mother, Betty, brushed a tear from her eye, proudly smiling up at her son. She had waited years for this to happen, and now that it had, she was utterly speechless.

Meanwhile out in the hall, Greg was sat on his own, looking up at the clock above him. He had been watching the doctors and nurses walking by, but they were starting to ask him questions as he had a worried look on his face. He didn't know what was happening with Sara, he hadn't even been told that she had her baby yet.

"Hey, you." Nick appeared beside him, holding a fluffy teddy bear out to him that he had just bought from the gift shop. "So, this is where you got to? I thought I lost you."

"Sorry," Greg hopped over a seat, allowing Nick to sit down beside him. "I didn't want to get in the way. Are the kids alright?"

"You weren't in the way. Penny took them back home. Ethan's alright, I think. He fell asleep shortly after, Eldon, switched em back." The Texan dropped down beside him, feeling as though the t-shirt he was wearing beneath his jacket was about to rip. He was wearing a pair of his own sweatpants to accommodate his slightly larger waist and legs, but he was still wearing the t-shirt that Greg had lent him, only it was really tight against his chest now.

"Where's Catherine, she back yet?"

"Yeah, she wasn't too happy about returnin' to her ripe old age of forty six. She almost scratched Eldon's eyes out as he refused to reverse her age any further. Once I got her calm, I took her home. She's gonna swing by later. I think she's just adjustin' to bein' an adult again." He smiled round at him. "Do you know if Sara's had the baby yet?" He changed the subject, leaning back in his seat to get comfy.

"I don't know." Greg looked at his boyfriend beside him, realising that he had returned to normal as he saw the familiar Texas grin on his face. The beautiful laugh lines beside his eyes were deeper and more defined, making him the man he fell in love with again. "Did you get Eldon to destroy it?" He reached out for the man's hand on his knee, lifting it into his own. "We don't want anything like this happening again."

"I know, it's in my car." Nick gave him another warm smile, gently brushing his thumb across the back of Greg's hand. "He was talkin' about some new discovery thanks to the scan he did on me. I left him to it and swiped the device. I don't think he's noticed yet. Let's hope it takes him a while to build whatever he's plannin'." He gave out a sigh, thinking he should have done more than just swipe the device that caused all of this. "He said he built this thing years ago when Penny was still just a kid, you don't think he has the schematics or somethin' still lyin' around do you?"

The younger man gave him a shrug, clutching Nick's hand tighter as he saw the worry in his eyes. "It's a shame he's the CEO of the company. You could have reported him and got him fired."

"Still could, we could report him for endangerin' the lives of my kids, law enforcement, especially Sara and her baby though. If we could get anyone to believe us that is. This story _is_ a little out there. I still can't believe it and I saw it for myself."

"What did Penny say about her father?"

"I don't know. She's not talkin' to him. I don't think she's gonna let him see his grandchildren again."

"Good." Greg turned himself on the chair, slowly reaching his hand up to brush his fingers through the older man's soft hair. "I thought I lost you for a second there. I know how you felt when you were trying to protect your kids, because I felt the same when I was trying to protect you from him. I love you, Nick." He smiled at him, after saying it to the man's face for the first time. He had whispered it to him a few times while he was asleep, but he wasn't sure if Nick had ever heard him.

"You love me?" Nick sounded surprised, as though he thought that no one could ever love him.

"Yeah." The younger man grinned, still holding Nick's hand in his own. "What's so surprising about that? Is it the fact that it's me that said it or that you weren't expecting this kind of relationship from someone like me?"

"I just can't believe you love me."

"Why not? Your gorgeous, sexy, funny, you're really caring and super sensitive, but in a good way. Our personalities might not match, but opposites always attract, look at Sara and Grissom. My Mom and Dad are complete opposites too, and they get along great. Most of the time anyway. Sometimes my Mom just goes on and on at him for no entire reason. Kinda like me, so you don't have to say it back... but I've never felt like this about anyone before. I've had a few boyfriends and girlfriends, not as many as I make out, but I've never felt like this about them."

He paused for a breathier, relieved to see that Nick was still listening to him.

"You know how sometimes words can't describe what you feel? Well I pretty much feel like that all the time when I'm near you. My heart races inside my chest, my hands sweat and I feel as though I'm going to say or do something wrong that's going to end it all. This sounds kinda cheesy, but I still get butterflies in my stomach whenever you look at me." He nervously smiled as Nick was looking into his eyes right now. "I know that we haven't been dating that long, but I've known you for a long time and I actually miss you when you're not around. That sounds stupid I know, but I can't go through a day without thinking about you."

"It's not stupid." Nick grinned back, adoring the younger man even more. "Sometimes it can take one thing to make you realise how much you need or love someone."

Leaning closer, Greg pressed his lips to the man's cheek, giving him a wide grin. "I'm glad you understand. I can't think of any other way to explain it. You are quickly becoming a huge part of my life, my world, my everything... I'm deeply, madly in love you, Nick. And if you're not ready for it, I completely understand..."

"I love you." Nick interrupted him, taking both of Greg's hands into his own. "I can't explain it in as many words as you did, but I love you too, G. This relationship, it wasn't some rebound or an experiment or anythin' like that. I wasn't even lookin' for a relationship."

"Are you glad that you found me though?"

"More than glad." Moving closer, Nick cupped the younger man's cheeks in his hands, bringing their lips together. He kissed him passionately for a few seconds, before he remembered where they were.

As they broke apart though, they heard someone clearing their throat beside them. They quickly turned their heads to the side, gulping hard simultaneously as their former supervisor was stood beside them, shocked at what he had just seen.

"The baby?" Nick quickly wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, feeling as though he had just been caught by his father.

"Yeah..." Grissom tried to compose himself, trying to act the same as he did when he found Catherine making out with one of the detective's in the layout room. "A boy. We have a son. Sara's... she's okay."

"A son." The Texan smiled at the older man. "You decided what to call him yet?"

"No, no... not yet."

"Grissom," Greg climbed to his feet, wondering how much he saw or heard as they hadn't actually looked away from each other in a while. "About what you saw..."

"No, it doesn't matter." The older man shook his head, ushering the two of them towards her room. "My mother's gone home. Sara wants you to meet him." Ignoring what he had seen, Grissom led them towards Sara's room, giving her a smile as he re-entered. He stepped aside to let the two men in, wondering how long exactly the two of them had been dating in secret.

"Hey, I gotcha this." Nick held out the teddy bear to Sara, making her smile.

"Thanks Nick, you shouldn't have." She hugged the Texan first as he was first into the room, before she reached out for her pseudo little brother, Greg. She smiled as the younger man hugged her tightly, feeling as though he really was her younger brother after the bond they had formed over the years. "You can pick him up if you want, Nick." She saw him leaning over the crib to get a look at the baby.

"Watch his head." Grissom cautioned him, getting a smile out of the younger man.

"Yeah, I've got two kids, Griss. I know how to hold a baby." He carefully scooped up the newborn from the crib, gently cradling him against his chest. "How much does he weigh?" He queried, stepping closer to Sara on the bed.

"Um..."

"Seven pounds, two ounces." Grissom answered for her, having memorised it since one of the nurses told him. "We haven't decided on a name yet, but Sara likes the idea of naming him after a William Shakespeare character."

"Not William then?" Greg queried, stepping up beside Nick to look at the little boy in his arms. He smiled as he saw the look in his boyfriend's eyes, loving how he lit up around children like a natural born parent. He only wished that he could provide a family for him like Penny could.

"No, it's too popular." Sara shook her head. "And too long, it doesn't really have a nice nickname. And I'm not calling him Romeo either." She warned her husband, seeing that familiar look in his eyes. "If we had a girl, he wanted to call her, Juliette."

"I'm no Shakespeare expert, but why would you wonna name your kids after two characters that commit suicide?" Nick asked his former supervisor, carefully handing the newborn over to his mother as he started to whimper. He recognised the sound from his own two children, signalling that they were about to fuss. "We should leave you guys to it, you look exhausted, Sara."

"Yeah, I feel it too." The new mother smiled up at him, adjusting her squirmy baby against her chest. "Thanks for the teddy." She indicated towards the teddy bear sat at her side. "Once I'm out of the hospital, I'll invite all you guys around for that baby shower that Wendy wanted to throw." She smirked, as she had been so against it before. "And we really need to talk about this whole business with a device that swaps peoples bodies."

"Yeah." Her husband agreed, perching himself on the edge of the bed. "I'm still a little sceptical about it, but I saw it with my own eyes. That man should be arrested for what he did."

"The device is out of his hands now. The point is that he fixed it and got everyone back to normal. I don't think he should end up in prison for that." Nick defended his ex father in law, even though he wanted to kill the man in question at first. "I think he's learnt his lesson anyway. He won't be givin' dangerous devices like that to nine years olds any time soon."

"Still Nicky, Brass is gunning for blood after this." Grissom warned him. "He's not going to let this Eldon guy off lightly, even if he did fix it."

"It's not Nick's fault." Greg backed him up, giving Sara another quick hug. "I'm glad you're okay. I can't believe you're really a mother. I thought we had three weeks left before this little one came out."

"Speaking of, Greg..." Sara remembered, adjusting the blanket wrapped around her baby to get a better look at his adorable facial features. "Gil and I, we were wondering if you would... well, if you'd like to be our son's godfather."

"Wow... really, me?" He felt completely speechless that they would choose him as the godfather over everyone else that they could have chosen. "Why not, Nicky?"

"No offence, Nick, but you've already got children and commitments. We're not picking on you because you haven't got anything like that, Greg." Grissom assured the youngest man in the room. "I mean, there's no reason why you can't both..." He was about to suggest that they could both be their son's godfather, especially after what he had just seen out in the hallway.

"Yeah." Sara picked up on what he was saying. "You guys, all of you guys from the lab are our only real family. If anything happens to either of us, I'd like to know that our son is well looked after by the family that's always been there for us. We protect each other and look out for each other on the field all the time; I know you'll both do the same for our child."

Greg smiled widely at Sara, still surprised that they would pick him first over, Nick. "We better leave you to it then." He turned for the door, watching his boyfriend pressing a kiss to Sara's forehead, before he said goodbye to the baby in her arms. Nick made his way to the door, giving his boyfriend a warm smile. "You're such a softie around babies."

"You were the one who said I was a softie." The Texan slid his hand into Greg's, for their first public hand hold. "Why'd you look so nervous when Grissom caught us?"

"Because he's our boss, or used to be anyway." Greg pulled his hand away from Nick's, slowly turning to face him. "What if he tells someone? He's always been obligated to hold up lab policies."

"He didn't exactly take those policies to heart when he was with Sara." Nick pointed out to him. "Anyway, I thought it was me that was worried about gettin' found out at the lab. Since when have you been so worried about it?"

Greg gave out a sigh, looking round at the people walking around them, before he looked back at his boyfriend in front of him. "Brass... he cracked a joke in the cells, after Ecklie locked us up in case we were contagious. He was paired with the deputy he had switched with and I was with Hodges. He cracked some stupid joke about Hodges turning me into a..." He didn't want to use the exact words that Captain Brass had used, as the memory of them still hurt. "It made me realise what you meant about protecting ourselves by staying on the down low. We work with law enforcement. They're the most homophobic people I've ever met. I never grew up with that fear of being myself that you had."

"Greg..."

"We can still see each other." Greg took a step away from him. "Just not publicly or on duty. We have to be more careful around your kids too. Ethan was asking me questions while you were asleep at my apartment..."

"Greg, sayin' I love you is supposed to be a step forwards in a relationship, not a step backwards. If you're worried about work, then I'll leave." He stepped closer to him, looking his boyfriend in the eye. "I need to spend more time with my kids, and I don't wonna lose what I have with you. How can you say that you love me one minute then you don't want me anywhere near you the next?"

He stepped away from him again, keeping his head down, so he didn't have to feel guilty by looking Nick in the eye. "Because I _do_ love you, and I don't want anything bad to happen to you. Grissom's right, you have commitments. I don't. As far as everyone else is concerned, I'm a single bachelor with no friends outside of work and the only family I have live in LA. You have more to lose."

"I don't wonna lose you." Nick gently lifted the man's chin, forcing him to look him in the eye. "I love you too. Penny kicked me out because she knew I could never love her. I didn't belong there. My kids are still a huge part of me and my life, but I need somebody too. I can't lose you."

"I don't wonna lose you either, which is why we should be more careful. Maybe it would be easier if we were straight and opposite sexes like Grissom and Sara, but we're not. We're not the same. Well we are, that's the problem though."

"Personally, I liked the speech about love better than this." The Texan walked away from him, making his way towards the exit.

"Nick." He immediately took off running after him, catching up to him as he reached the car park. "I meant that we're not the same as Grissom and Sara. You can't deny that." He hurried alongside him to keep up with him. "They announced their relationship and everyone's asking when the big day is or when they're planning on having children. If we announce our relationship to everyone at the lab, they're gonna start to worry they'll catch something from us by breathing the same air and the guys are gonna start to think that we're perving them up every time we're in the same room as them. It's not the same."

"Not everyone is like that though." Nick stopped walking, finally turning to face the younger man at his side. "You have to believe in the good in people."

Greg looked down at his hands, giving the man a slight shrug, "Maybe you do, but I'm not like you."

"You never used to be like this." He reached his hand out for Greg's shoulder, but the younger man pulled away from him before he could. "What?"

"Maybe you don't know me as well as you think." The younger man looked into his boyfriend's eyes, reminding him, "I haven't believed that there's good in everyone since I was beaten up by a bunch of teenagers, then found guilty by a bunch of jurors."

"You weren't found guilty."

"Near enough." Greg snapped back at him. "I don't know why you're fighting this so much. You were the one that wanted this in the first place."

"Maybe because I was stupid and didn't realise what I wanted when I decided that." He took both of the younger man's hands into his own, entwining their fingers together at their sides. "I want you. I'm willin' to give up my career for you. Isn't that proof enough for you?"

"I don't need proof." Greg took a step closer. "I need you to be safe. I've already had to watch you go through enough in the past. If we come out at work, we'll only be attacked again, but by people we know this time. I've seen those news reports where they shove broken bottles down guys throats. We've even cleaned up a few of those crime scenes."

"Greg, you can't worry about every little thing like that."

"I'm not..."

"Bad stuff happens to good people every day, but it doesn't stop people from tryin' to live out their lives." He interrupted him, figuring out what the problem was as he spotted the man anxiously looking over his shoulders. "If it's Brass that you're so worried about tellin', then we won't tell him. There's only really Catherine left on the night shift team now, and she's not likely to gossip if we tell her to keep it quiet. We don't even have to tell anyone. We can just continue on as we are." He gave his boyfriend a small smile, gently brushing his thumb across the younger man's smooth chin. "You wonna protect me, that's fine. But there's no reason to get so scared, baby."

"Don't call me baby." Greg gave him a grin, checking that no one was watching them. "You know I don't like pet names."

"It doesn't make the butterflies in your stomach flutter?" He gave him a flirtatious wink, making the younger man giggle softly. "To me it's just another way of showin' affection. I don't have to explain in great detail my feelin's for you every time I see you. I can just call you baby or honey and you'll know."

"Definitely not honey, that's what my mother calls me."

Nick chuckled softly, taking a step closer so that their hips were almost touching. "Okay, I won't call you honey. C'mon Greg, don't take two steps back in this relationship. You said you've never experienced anythin' like this before..."

"I also said that I was worried I would screw it up and I have."

"You haven't." He brushed his thumb across Greg's cheek. "That's what people do in a real relationship. They stick it out and support each other."

Greg lips immediately spread into smile. His cheeks flushed slightly and the butterflies returned to fluttering around his stomach, making him weak in the knees. "I wasn't turning you down, Nick. I was never turning you down. I'm completely helpless to you, so how could I? Just don't call my baby in public."

"Deal." His excited lover leant forwards, quickly stealing a kiss from his lips.

"You think we'll still be together in five, ten, twenty years?" Greg asked him, licking the Texan's delicious scent from his lips.

"I know I'm not givin' up after the first hurdle." The man affectionately took his hand into his own, leading him away to his car. Greg didn't know it yet, but Nick was willing to sacrifice his career, his reputation and his family name for him. None of it really mattered to him anymore. He didn't want to be trapped in schedules and guidelines that kept him from the people he loved.

Keeping his boyfriend and his children happy was all that mattered to him now.

He knew it would keep him on his toes.

But they were well worth the effort.

**THE END**

* * *

**Sorry it took so long to update, haven't really had the time to write. Holidays coming up soon though, so should have more time to finish off some of my other ideas.**

**Possibility of a sequel to this one, so it won't end there. I'm not so sure if people really liked this one though, so I'll hold off on it for a while. Please let me know what you thought. I know it's cheesy, but I'm a sucker for a happy ending.**

**Have a great weekend!**

**~ Holly**


End file.
